Death and freedom

Milan Bandić died, the only man in the urban history of the world who was so popular that he was elected mayor of a serious metropolis six times, and after whom nothing in his city - apart from one Mirogoj grave - will ever be named.

These few days of communal mourning and great, all the best words about the deceased will pass, after which friends, relatives and godfathers from the province will all be renounced, or at least all important ones: his mortgage will become too heavy for anyone and any serious political ambition , and Zagreb will eventually remain the only city in the world without a monument, square or street named after the man who ruled the city for more than twenty years, twice as long as the second longest-serving mayor.

And in such a short epitaph everything that needs to be remembered about Milan Bandić, his city and the state of which it was the metropolis would be summed up.

A little before midnight, we will read later, he was brought from home to Sveti Duh Hospital with a severe heart attack. When it was realized that Sveti Duh was the farthest from his house out of all the hospitals in Zagreb, a loyal friend told reporters that Bandić actually got sick in a restaurant. When it was realized that due to the epidemiological measures, the restaurants should not actually be open, another loyal friend told the journalists that Bandić had actually gotten sick at a friend's house. In short, it is not known for sure where Milan Bandić died. The only thing that is known for sure is where he is not: and he did not die in prison.

Criminals in Croatia do not die in prison.

A year and a half ago, let's say - those very days when the angry Bandić threatened everyone who worked for him with his famous "black book" with their names - Kristian Vukasović, who was barely an adult, tragically died while serving his sentence in Split's Bilice prison. An unfortunate young man, with bronchial asthma and a diagnosed ADHD disorder - of "disharmonious intellectual development" and "undesirable social behavior", as the HZZO experts wrote, qualifying his case as a severe disability of the third degree - driven by his own demons, set fire to the family home of a couple olive tree and in fear of himself immediately reported to the police.

And yet - even though he was placed in the Zagreb Hospital for Persons Deprived of Liberty three times during the four months of pre-trial detention for attempted suicide, even though he was barely an adult and was mentally and physically disabled in the third degree, even though he cried before the court and begged for mercy and help, even though and the court expert recommended the obligation of psychiatric treatment - the Croatian state did not try Kristian Vukasović as a sick young adult, according to the Law on Juvenile Courts, but as a healthy, accountable and responsible adult, cold-bloodedly sending him to serve an unconditional prison sentence. Where at the end, in an agony unimaginable to us, he literally died of fear.

Real Croatian criminals, however, never end up like that. None of them ever met their end in prison. Even the recently deceased commander of Pakrac's death squads and war criminal Tomislav Merčep died in freedom, surrounded by his family, after spending that ridiculous prison sentence at our expense mostly in swimming pools, sunbeds, massage parlors and long walks on the lawns of Krapinske Toplice.

Criminals and criminals in Croatia, I said, do not die in prison. Those who, for the purposes of their official bookkeeping, are occasionally patted on the head by the judiciary, we always remember in the same frame: it is the second or third minute of the television newscast, and our hero comes out of the gates of the Remitenec prison, unshaven, in tracksuits, with a black plastic bag of personal belongings in his hand , so he said a warm goodbye to the policeman, smiled and waved at the cameras, kissed a woman in a mink fur coat and got into a black Audi. A man who does not have at least one photo in his CV in a tracksuit, with a black bag in front of the gate of Remetinac, is not considered a serious politician and successful entrepreneur in Croatia.

If, instead of special ones, he had quite ordinary Croatian needs - some kind of villa in the Podsljemen area, a BMW SUV, several accounts in European banks, a godfather in the ministry and a Fendi sofa in the living room - the boy Kristian would also have left prison in tracksuits, with a black bag in hand. Instead of a hearse and devastated parents, a black Audi with a woman in a mink fur coat would be waiting for him at the gate.

A few days before Milan Bandić was to die a free man - here is another beautiful example - Tomislav Horvatinčić, a wealthy hunk and a four-time serial killer, was operated on at the same freedom.

Even more bitter - right around the time when Kristian Vukasović died in prison, and Milan Bandić waved his "black book" - after three repeated trials and a ten-year, rarely perverse court case, Horvatinčić was finally sentenced to four years and ten months in prison: exactly how long it took for him not to go straight to Remitenec from the courtroom. And ever since then, this intolerable entrepreneurial scumbag has been openly messing with us and the state, paying lawyers and experts to delay his sentence every few months due to illness, then ostentatiously spending his dearly paid freedom on cafes in the Zagreb rush hour, summer vacations in Dalmatia or shopping down Goethe Strasse in Frankfurt.

By a wonderful coincidence, just a few days before the fourth suspension of his sentence expired, the four-time serial killer was operated on at the University Clinic for Orthopedics and Traumatology in Vienna. They say it's because such an operation is not performed in Croatia, but actually simply because he has the money for such an operation. Truth be told, if there wasn't that money, Horvatinčić wouldn't be in prison anyway, but not because Croatian justice is equal for everyone, but because without that money, he wouldn't even have the opportunity to kill four people with various expensive traffic on land and sea.

And until the Croatian state proves that there is not, nor has there ever been, a single convict in Croatian prisons with a disease that can only be treated in foreign university clinics, it will remain a country where freedom can be bought completely legally. It may, in fact, sound callous - I allow for the possibility, Horvatinčić and callousness in the same sentence are certainly not natural enemies - but someone with such a verdict and so much money could just as easily have gone to Vienna at his own expense and been handcuffed in a van of the Judicial Police, as already for operations in ordinary, less enterprising and less wealthy convicts go to hospitals. He could, for example, even pay for a hotel and an operation in Zagreb for expensive foreign surgeons, they have excellent scalpels and highly trained staff in Zagreb hospitals.

The Croatian state has a Hospital for Persons Deprived of Liberty - at least it had one when Kristian was in custody cutting his forearm with a razor - so even if he doesn't have the conditions and knowledge to operate on rich people's tumors, he certainly has everything he needs for care and care before and after such operations. As, after all, it has everything needed for the care and nursing of eighteen-year-old boys with special needs. And yet, even though such children do not have to undergo therapy in expensive Viennese clinics, Kristian Vukasović had to go to prison, and he had to go to prison immediately. And Kristian didn't butcher a couple of pensioners with an expensive yacht, he just set fire to a couple of olive trees. And he didn't call friends and lawyers in Zagreb like Horvatinčić instead of the police, instead he was tormented by his own demons and his own conscience - I will repeat it until the end of the text - he went to the police station himself. For him, however, there was neither parole nor the Krapin spa, let alone shopping in Goethe Strasse and expensive doctors in Vienna.

Tomislav Horvatinčić - we always knew it, we knew it then and we know it today - will eventually die in freedom, to which ten years ago he walked in tracksuits, with a black bag, through the back door of the Šibenik pre-trial prison, which was opened only for him. And Milan Bandić, like every other respectable and well-known Croat, has such photos in his album, twice with a black bag in his hands he went out through the gate of Remetinac, after the directors of his private utility companies and the famous law firm Hanžeković collected two million euros for the largest bail in the history of the Croatian judiciary.

Of all the heroes of this story, however, only Kristian Vukasović was afraid of prison, only he died of fear in the end, only he died of fear in the cell. Of all the heroes of this story - in addition to the arrogant rich man Tomislav Horvatinčić, the war criminal Tomislav Merčep and the mafia boss Milan Bandić - only Kristian was of "undesirable social behavior": of all the heroes of this story, only Kristian, for example, was not a guest in the box of honor at the festive inauguration of President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović.

At the time of his death, Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandić had dozens of summonses, about a hundred affairs and a total of two hundred and fifty criminal charges on his account, yet he welcomed her in freedom, on a Fendi armchair in his luxurious apartment, enjoying himself in a fine dining room opened just for him. dining at a restaurant or cooking steaks at a friend's house, it is not known and it does not matter at all: it is known and it only matters that it was not in prison.

Criminals in Croatia never, ever die in prison. Namely, in order to one day die in freedom, you must be a little over eighteen years old, have bronchial asthma, ADHD disorder and the third degree of disability.

And definitely work on your social behavior.

(N1)