Posted on 10/01/2003 3:49:23 PM PDT by joan
BENIDORM, Spain (Reuters) - Police may have missed a chance to thwart the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic due to poor cooperation in tracking stolen blank passports, according to the head of Interpol.
Secretary General Ronald Noble said police now knew that Milorad Ulemek, a key suspect in the March 12 shooting in Belgrade, had obtained one of 100 blank Croatian passports stolen from that country's consulate in Mostar, Bosnia, in 1999.
Ulemek, a former paramilitary and gang leader also known as Milorad Lukovic or by the nickname "Legija," used the passport to travel extensively through Switzerland, Austria, Macedonia, Greece, Singapore and Croatia.
Noble said the suspect had exploited the fact the world police body had lacked a stolen passport database or a clear method to report such thefts.
"We might have prevented this assassination," he said in remarks that were published on Interpol's Web site on Tuesday, a day after he delivered them to the world police body's annual assembly in Spain. Ulenek is still at large.
Although Interpol has launched a database on stolen travel documents, officials said fewer than a sixth of nations were using it and this was playing into the hands of criminals.
"This type of crime occurs on a daily basis around the world. Few countries enter this data in national databases and even fewer enter it in international databases," Noble said.
Interpol's operational support chief Jean-Michel Louboutin said only 29 of the 181 member countries were supplying information to the database, which nevertheless contained the serial numbers of more than 250,000 stolen travel papers.
Most were what he called "virgin documents," meaning criminals could construct a fake identity at will.
A major theme of Noble's speech was the need for Interpol member countries to make better and more frequent use of the world's police body's databanks, which also cover wanted persons, stolen vehicles and DNA records.
He also urged states to hook up faster to I-24/7, a new Internet-based, heavily encrypted communications system which is crucial to Interpol's drive to modernize itself since the September 11 attacks on the United States.
So far 78 countries have joined the network, which enables officers to transmit critical information such as photographs, fingerprints and video instantly around the world.
It replaces an antiquated system by which, until several years ago, urgent "red notices" for wanted persons were distributed by low-priority mail in a process that could take many weeks.
Ulemek, a former paramilitary and gang leader also known as Milorad Lukovic or by the nickname "Legija," used the passport to travel extensively through Switzerland, Austria, Macedonia, Greece, Singapore and Croatia.
Was Ulemek his real name and not Lukovic?
Also, he obtained the passports at the Croatian embassy in Bosnia and traveled through Croatia. Surely the government in Croatia had to be aware of this, don't you agree?
Milorad was born as Ulemek and later legally changed name to Lukovic. No surprise there. He was nicknamed "Legija" (legionaire) because he served in French Legion.
I have no idea why his earlier name is in circulation again. At the same time Bosnia war was going on (1992-95) French and Americans waged proxy war in Great LAkes in Africa (Rwanda) and East Congo. Americans won.
The war of American and French secret services in Bosnia is seldomly mention in that context, and it should. (e.g. Pauk group, Col. Yugo, French recruitment of Serb mercenaries for Zaire, the role of French and U.S. secret services in Srebrenica etc.)
Interesting stuff. Perhaps Deuxieme Bureau know something about Djinjdic assasination that we do not.
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