by John Pryor
NEW YORK - Ten Croatian nationalists were organized in a "nationwide criminal operation" to spread extortion, arson, bombing and murder across the country in the name of independence from Yugoslavia, a federal prosecutor said Thursday in his opening statement at the trial of the 10.
"They called the shots," prosecutor Paul Shechtman said of the defendants in his opening remarks to the jury at the racketeering trial in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. "They recruited others to take the risks."
Four of the defendants, he said, managed the national headquarters in Chicago of a group called OTPOR, which seeks a separate and independent republic of Croatia. The six others ran its field offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Cleveland, and Toronto, the prosecutor said.
In what he described as a "large-scale nationwide criminal operation," Schechtman said the defendants "declared war on almost every moderate Croatian group in the country which wanted independence but not through violence."
From 1975 to 1981, he said, the defendants plotted to bomb, burn, and kill, and actually carried out some of those crimes, to force the moderates to comply with their demands for financial support.
Defense lawyers told the jury of seven women and five men that much of the alleged criminal activities, including 50 acts of extortion, three of arson and two slayings, actually were committed by agents of the Yugoslav secret police.
"They were the victims," the defense said about the defendants who, their lawyers said, fled to this country from Yugoslavia to escape religious and political persecution.
Prosecutor Shechtman said the alleged extortion scheme began with letters sent from West Germany to Croatian nationalists in the United States demanding contributions to the defendants of $5,000 to $10,000. Payments, Shechtman said, were to be made to a post office in Asuncion, Paraguay.
"When the payments were slow," he said, "the defendants struck back."
"They murdered Anthony Cikoja outside his home in Scarsdale, N.Y., in September 1978, and Krizan Brkic outside his home in Glendale, Calif., in September 1978," he said. "They bombed the factory owned by Danilo Nikolic in Chicago in October 1978, and bombed the homes and trucks of three moderates in Los Angeles in April and May 1979."
Defendant Mile Markic, 57, of Chicago, Shechtman said, was the leader of the group, the "elder statesman," who used his home to conceal dynamite, plastic explosives and weapons. Ante Ljubas, 37, also of Chicago, was his "field general" and national recruiter.
Schechtman described defendant Drago Sudar, 50, of Etobicoke, Ont., as a "skilled bomb maker" who traveled widely in the United States and Europe to teach his skills. Many of the explosive devices used in the alleged acts came from Toronto, the prosecutor said.
Defendant Vinko Logarusic of Cleveland, Schechtman continued, developed a "neat weapon" - an explosive device concealed between book covers to be sent through the mails. Ranko Primorac of Long Beach, Calif., "sought to bomb and kill Croatians who did not share his political views," the prosecutor alleged.
The indictment also includes allegations that the defendants conspired to set off explosives at the United Nations and Grand Central Terminal in New York. They plotted to murder Yugoslav officials in San Francisco, carried explosives and guns across the country by car and bus, and plotted the murder of a Catholic priest in Milwaukee, the indictment alleged.
If convicted on the charges of violating the Federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law, each could face up to 20 years in prison. The trial is expected to last at least two months.