crimes committed by totalitarian regimes - Ministrstvo za pravosodje

Crimes committed by totalitarian regimes
The British and American occupation authorities in Austria, particularly the British Field Security
Service and the American Counter Intelligence Corps, were aware of the operations of the intelligence
centres and illegal groups. The members of some of these illegal groups crossed the Yugoslav-Austrian
border; if they were apprehended, the Field Security Service interrogated them about why they were
fleeing across the border and what the conditions were like in Yugoslavia. They were also frequently
interested in data on the Army, the UDV and the Party. 30 In the UDV analyses there are several hints
that they signed statements of cooperation with the Field Security Service, but at present this cannot be
verified. The accusations of the UDV and the Party that the members of the groups operated following
the instructions of foreign intelligence services also do not hold up, since it cannot be established from
the available documents which intelligence services were involved (the Field Security Service and the
Counter Intelligence Corps were not intelligence services!). Furthermore, neither the UDV, the public
prosecutor’s offices nor the courts explained what sort of intelligence, military or other data on the
situation in Yugoslavia the individuals were supposed to have sent abroad. It is hard for us to imagine
that the members and supporters of the illegal groups, who were mainly farmers, were actually in
possession of information that constituted carefully protected state secrets.
The work of the illegal groups was not a political, military or religious movement, as presented
by the authorities at the time, who skilfully took advantage of their existence. Under the pretext that the
members and supporters of these groups were cooperating with intelligence centres in Austria or even
with foreign intelligence services and attempting to destroy the communist regime, with the help of
the UDV they eliminated a few serious and many more suspected “class enemies”. The most common
modus operandi of the UDV was to place an agent into an illegal group; according to various data
some of their agents were even leaders of these groups. 31 Mainly through their widespread agent and
informer network in the field and agents within the groups, the UDV fairly successfully uncovered the
operations of the groups and collected data on their members. They were less successful in capturing
them, as many of the leaders and members of the largest illegal groups succeeded in escaping. Their
greatest successes include the arrest of a member of the Main Intelligence Centre in Austria, Miodrag
Mihajlović, and two couriers from the same centre. The UDV convinced Mihajlović and one of the
couriers to work as collaborators. 32
The judicial proceedings against members and supporters of illegal groups were public, and they
were tried pursuant to the Criminal Offences Against the People and the State Act. The criminal offences
which the prosecutors accused the defendants of having committed on the basis of UDV materials were
grounded in political fact and were without exception connected with current political and economic
conditions in the country. This was also true of the courts. The entire investigative procedure was
exclusively in the hands of the UDV, which used inhuman methods to gather only incriminating evidence,
and like the public prosecutor’s offices and the courts later on, uncompromisingly rejected any attempts
to prove the innocence of the defendants. We believe that the UDV also planted incriminating evidence.
This is proved by the need for retrials after 1991, in which the applicants often stated that they were tried
on the basis of counterfeit documents. 33 Therefore it is disputable that the courts proved the defendants’
guilt solely on the basis of their interrogations during the investigative procedure. Suspects did not have
counsel during the investigative procedures. Legal counsel was included in the process only during the
hearing, and in the majority of cases the court assigned them to the defendants ex officio. Therefore the
lawyers rarely posed questions for the defendants, since they were unable to prepare adequately for the
hearings; they received the indictments either just before the hearing or at the hearing itself.
The public prosecutors had the last word at the hearings. Documents show that the UDV, public
prosecutor’s offices and courts agreed on both the course of the judicial proceedings and the severity
of the sentences. 34 The trials of members and supporters of the illegal groups were political and mostly
staged.
30
Cf. AS 1931, GOC-NKKJ; Kornhauser; Drčar; Sernec Gang. Public Record Office, Foreign Office, 1020/3178, List of all persons
connected with the gang, 17 September 1947; Interrogation report: Franz Hautz, 8 September 1947; Interrogation report: Sernec Josef,
9 September 1947; Interrogation report: Slavko Jursic, 14 September 1947; Interrogation report: Alois Pozderec, 23 September 1947;
Interrogation report: Martin Sainovic, 23 September 1947.
31
AS 1931, Palček gang; Franc Požar gang.
32
AS 1931, Sernec gang; GOC-NKKJ; Beginning and End of Gang Activity in Štajerska; Illegal Organization of Gangs – Analyses.
33
Cf. NGRA, Gorica District Court, K 41/49, K 62/50; MRA, Maribor District Court, Ko 287/46, Ko 288/46, Ko 290/46, K 162/48; CHA,
Celje District Court, K 300/47.
34
Zdenko Zavadlav, Crusaders: Matjaž’s War in Slovenia, Ljubljana 1991 (hereinafter Zavadlav, Crusaders); AS 1931, GROM; the Slan
gang.
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