Mit - Index

Mit - UVK_Sinfo_2008_08_št.12 - Index

the Slovenian company ROTIS d.o.o. as authorized representative
of Patria OYJ and the Slovenian company Sistemska tehnika,
which is majority-owned by the American company General Dynamics.
ROTIS d.o.o.’s bid was deemed more cost effective, so
the company was awarded the EUR278m contract. At the Defence
Minister’s express demand an anti-corruption clause
was incorporated in the contract, enabling the rescission of the
contract if any corruption is proven.
In the programme aired on TV1, which was intended to disclose
illegal activities connected to this contract, the majority of key
facts relating to the purchase of Patria’s AMVs were not presented.
At the same time, however, the programme provided a
host of misleading, false and twisted claims:
1. ACCUSAtIONS ABOUt BrIBE tAKING
On Tuesday, 2 September, the Prime Minister of the Republic of
Slovenia Janez Janša firmly rejected such accusations.
Slovenian criminal investigators who interviewed the PM Janša
after the programme was aired on the Finnish television have
confirmed that their documents relating to the purchase of Patria’s
AMVs contain no allegations or indications that would
in any way implicate Mr Janša as a suspect. The only time any
groundless accusations were voiced was in the programme by
Magnus Berglund.
2. OBStrUCtING POLICE INvEStIGAtIONS
IN SLOvENIA
The Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia Janez Janša has
never instructed the Minister of the Interior to stop police investigations.
The accusation in the programme relating to this is not
substantiated by a single shred of evidence. What is more, it is
based on the presumption of one of the four interviewees, Slovenian
citizens, who happens to be a candidate of the opposition
party LDS. Both the Prime Minister and the Minister of the Interior
have already announced civil action against that individual.
3. ACqUAINtANCE wItH PErSONS
ALLEGEDLy CONNECtED wItH tHE
PAtrIA DEAL
The Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia Janez Janša has assured
both the investigators and the public that he did not know
and did not cooperate with Mr Walter Wolf, whom Mr Berlund
alleges handed over the bribe to Mr Janša. The Slovenian PM has
said that he never met and did not know Mr Wolf, and that he
had even never had any indirect contact with him. In a statement
for the Slovenian press, Mr Wolf likewise denied any acquaintance
or contacts with the Prime Minister.
4. PEOPLE ALLEGEDLy INvOLvED wItH
tHE PAtrIA DEAL CONNECtED wItH tHE
SLOvENIAN DEMOCrAtIC PArty
The people such as Walter Wolf and Jure Cekuta, whom Mr Berglund
alleges to have received bribes, appeared in the Slovenian
press in the 1990s, when a disputed issue over the purchase of
arms and other military equipment in Israel was investigated.
On several occasions, the Slovenian media have presented Mr
5
ThetruthabouTPatria
Cekuta as a personal acquaintance of the former Slovenian Prime
Minister and leader of the LDS party.
5. MANIPULAtION OF PICtOrIAL
MAtErIAL IN tHE PrOGrAMME
As the journalist introduces the businessman Mr Walter Wolf, the
camera focuses on the sign denoting Wolfova Street in Ljubljana.
Consequently, the viewer is under the impression that Mr Wolf
is a businessman of such extraordinary standing that one of the
streets in Slovenia’s capital has been named after him. The truth
of the matter is that the street was named after the 18th century
Bishop of Ljubljana, Anton Alojzij Wolf.
Two different sources have apparently led the author of the programme
to present the harsh accusations against the Slovenian
Prime Minister: the alleged documents from Patria and the selection
of contributors from Slovenia.
5.1. DOCUMENtS FrOM PAtrIA
The documents which Mr Berglund mentions are not presented
to the audience, who are left to merely guess at their content.
The source itself also compromises the credibility of this alleged
evidence: on 4 September, Patria released an unambiguous message
to the public saying: “Patria is not aware of any facts that
would indicate that the accusations against certain individuals
made by the Finnish TV-program MOT would be founded.”
5.2. CONtrIBUtOrS tO tHE PrOGrAMME
- The Chairman of the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption
Drago Kos is a former criminal investigator. His brother was
a lawyer of Sistemska tehnika. Sistemska tehnika is the company
whose bid at the AMV tender could not compete with that of
ROTIS d.o.o., which is why it was not selected.
When he worked as a criminal investigator, Drago Kos illegally acquired
a list of telephone conversations made by a journalist on
Slovenia’s national TV, Tomaž Ranc, a fact which was asserted by
the Supreme Court of the Republic of Slovenia after a long judicial
procedure. Drago Kos’s partner is a journalist for POP TV, the TV
station which was the first to release the news about YLE’s reporting
on the affair.
- Milan ©vajger is the director of Sistemska tehnika, the company
which unsuccessfully competed for the tender. After the said programme
was aired on YLE, Milan ©vajger and Drago Kos stated that
they had no evidence and had only drawn logical conclusions.
- Milan M. Cvikl is a deputy in the Slovenian National Assembly and
a candidate of the opposition party, the Social Democrats. He is
running for election in the same electoral district as Prime Minister
Janša. Mr Cvikl’s partner has a history of business relations with
Sistemska tehnika.
- Bojan PotoËnik is a candidate of the Liberal Democracy of Slovenia,
also an opposition party. In the programme by Mr Berglund,
he is presented as a former Director General of the Slovenian Police
and current Adviser to the President of the Republic of Slovenia.
None of this is true. Mr PotoËnik was Acting Director General of
Police between April and June 2005, until another candidate was
selected in a public procedure. Nor was Mr PotoËnik Adviser to the
President of the Republic of Slovenia at the time of the interview
(12 August). The President’s Office had discontinued cooperation
with Mr PotoËnik before that.
12 sinfo