Humo, August 31, 1999

The dubious Italian Giovanni Di Stefano holds important commercial interests in the Yugoslavia of Slobodan Milosevic; building companies, airline company, newspapers, radio stations. He takes part in the lucrative political micro-economy that Milosevic, his family and their friends have created there. One of the most prestigious projects that Stefano and his friend Zeljko Raznjatovic, known as Arkan and sought for war crimes and leader of the private militian The Tigers, have set up in Belgrade, was the football team FC Obilic. Under pressure of the public, the UEFA has forced Arkan and Di Stefano to resign as president and vice president of Obilic. But does this mean that the club is not theirs anymore?

Humo: The regime-Milosevic is described as a Mob regime where murderers and gangsters rule. Is that so? Does Milosevic work with criminals?

Di Stefano: Who says that? Can people say that about a democratically chosen president just like that?

Humo: Is it true?

Di Stefano: What is a criminal? Do you think I am a criminal?

Humo: uh!

Di Stefano: I can't be a criminal. If I were only 1 tenth of what the newspapers write, I would have been in prison for a long time now. I go where I want, I travel a lot. In the last 11 months, I've been in Great Britain 83 times.

Humo: A record without any doubt.

Di Stefano: I have business interests in Great Britain and my sun is in boarding school in Scotland.

Humo: But what about that criminal connection?

Di Stefano: (hesitates): What is a criminal? If the definition is: someone who has ever been arrested and spent time in prison, then I guess it will be right about that criminal connection.

Humo: I am talking about Mob groups: smuggling, drugs, weapons, trade in women, white washing of money.

Di Stefano: No, no, no, no drugs. There are no drugs in Yugoslavia. There is no money. People can't afford drugs.

Humo: I mean Yugoslavia as a transit country to Western Europe.

Di Stefano: Try to get medicines through Yugoslavia. You wouldn't stand a chance. The Yugoslavs don't let pass any drugs. They would take them and sell them themselves. They need the money. That's pure logic, isn't it?

Humo: That's just what I mean: the Balkan is a traffic country and the regime-Milosevic tolerates that traffic.

Di Stefano: That happens in Bulgaria and in Albania. There's not much crime in Yugoslavia. Under Tito there was no crime at all. The people were scared of the law then and they still are.

In any case there are no bank robbers in Yugoslavia, because there is no money in the banks. No bankcards are being stolen, because there are no bankcards. There is no fraud with cheques, because there are no cheques. Mister Raznjatovic and His Excellence President Milosevic are examples for the world. They are honest people who do the correct thing by their business partners. I now here criticism on His Excellence because he phones his wife too much. He calls her 10 times a day. What the hell is wrong with that? I call my wife a lot too. That's why I married her. His Excellence has never had another woman, is something wrong with that?

Humo: the criticism was that her influence too big and that she has thrown herself into the business life with big conflicts of interests as a consequence.

Di Stefano: It's amazing that a Flemish person has to tell me that women can't have too much influence. In Flanders, men have nothing to say when they 're married! I know this from one of my bank managers there. He has a lot of problems in that department.

Humo: Do you have a lot of bank managers in Belgium?

Di Stefano: I have bank accounts in Flanders, but that's none of your business.

340 MURDERS

Humo: Milosevic and his family have used their political power to build up a personal economical empire.

Di Stefano: Nonsense. His Excellence only controls the economy for as far as he is president and that he practises the power over the economy that belongs to him. What's wrong with that? Your own Prime Minister has decided to close down a number of companies just like that, because of that stupid dioxin crisis. That's much worse than what president Milosevic does.

Humo: But we can assume that Guy Verhofstadt does not close down those companies to buy them later for almost nothing, like the gang Milosevic does in Yugoslavia.

Di Stefano: Do you want to laugh? 2 Weeks ago they have blocked an account of His Excellence in Switzerland. Do you know how much money was on there?

64 000 Dollar, a few million BEF. Is that the account of a man who is enrich himself on the heads of his people? You are diabolising a man who doesn't deserve that at all. His Excellence is being sued by the War Tribunal in Den Hague. He is being accused of 140 murders. I have told the Tribunal that they have to in bring charges against the leaders of the member states of the NAVO too, because they are responsible for the 773 citizens who died during the NAVO-bombings. That is murder too.

Humo: Marko Milosevic, the sun of the president, is being given carte blanche with his gang of street fighters. He takes what he wants without being punished.

Di Stefano: I know Marko. I visit him regularly. He is a very sweet boy. And indeed, he is the sun of the President. Doesn't he have the right to some privileges? And what are those privileges? A discotheque, a fun fair with 3 swings, a couple of companies and a few radio stations.

Humo: We are talking about the smuggling of cigarettes, distortion, about felony. He would have already smuggled part of his loot abroad, to Crete.

Di Stefano: nonsense. Look, His Excellence and Mr. Raznjatovic are being accused of nepotism. Is that such a bad thing? The sun of your king will become a king too one day. Maybe that sun is an idiot. Is that then not nepotism?

Humo: Seems like you know the Belgian royal house too.

Di Stefano: It's just not true that the family Milosevic controls the economy of Yugoslavia. Me personally, I have more economical power that they have.

Marko and Marija, the daughter of President Milosevic, have a nice car. Yes. But your Prime Minister's children surely have that too? You seem to be one of those people who think riches is suspicious. Rich people can't be honest people. Watch out, hey, that's communism. You sound like the former magistrate Antonio Di Pietro. He has ruined Italy with his operation 'clean hands'.

Humo: The regime of Milosevic is fundamentally criminal. It allows crime and corruption to.

Di Stefano: (angry): Are you going to nag about that too? What in the name of God is wrong with corruption? All over the world, politicians are bribed. All over the world business people bribe politicians. That's dead normal.

Humo: Dead normal in Yugoslavia.

Di Stefano: There it's even legal. Most politicians in Yugoslavia - including me - are businessmen, owners of companies. I have contacts with the government. If I use these contacts to obtain contracts, then that's a good thing. In Western Europe there's no employment any more because you're fighting in this fanatic way against corruption and bribery. Italy has build its whole infrastructure, its industry and its autostrada's with corruption.

SLEEPING DOGS

Humo: In Yugoslavia you own the company Sumadija, a big building company. Radojica Nikcevic, the former owner of Sumadija and of Radio Pinguin, was found in 1993 with a couple of bullets in his head. Sumadija and Radio Pinguin are yours now. Coincidence?

Di Stefano: A Yugoslavian journalist of the paper 'Vreme' suggested the same. I took him to court. Why would I kill my good friend Nikcevic?

Humo: To take over his companies?

Di Stefano: Back then Sumadija was still a state owned company and it was in the red for 19 million. I offered to take it over, together with 4 others. When those others heard how much debts the company had, they pulled out. I didn't, I wanted to show that Western ideas work, even in quasi-communist regime. And I did, 3 years later Sumadija was already 3 million above 0, and this without 1 single state contract.

Humo: Who killed Nikcevic and what was the motive?

Di Stefano: I've searched for years, but I've found nothing. I've only learnt the Yugoslavian mentality: let sleeping dogs lie. If you finally find the murderer, what then? Will that bring Nikcevic back? I'm not a revengeful man. Nikcevic was a hard worker, but he was in conflict with everyone, with the opposition, with the government, with other industrials. And privately, he sometimes did things that I would be very angry about too, with women and mistresses of others. It is said that there has been a meeting to decide weather Nikcevic had to die or not: if I would have been in that meeting, I would have said no. But in Yugoslavia, people have difficulty accepting that. In Yugoslavia most murders are about money or about mistresses.

Humo: There's a lot more people from the entourage of you and Arkan who died. Even a number of Tigers and the bridesmaid of your wife. All crimes of passion?

Di Stefano: Well yes, Pavic, the bridesmaid, that was a very painful business. She died accidentally when Rade Caldvic Cento was murdered, a very good friend of Mr.Raznjatovic and mine. A pity. And indeed, a Tiger was murdered during the opening of our casino in the hotel Yugoslavia. That casino is 65% mine and 35% Zeljko's. It's not going very well at the moment. There are few foreigners in Belgrade at the moment that fancy a gamble. But it doesn't bother us, we are people with a vision. We work for the future.

Humo: All those bodies.

Di Stefano: Indeed, there are people who die. Belgrade is a city of 3 million people. Last year, 79 people were murdered. 79 dead people, what is that? Nothing. I have staid alive all that time because I'm not a yes-man, not to Zeljko, not to His Excellence. They respect me. If you are a yes-man, you stay alive as long as you are useful.

Humo: Warriors like Arkan and Seselj are said to have also made big money with the ethnic cleansing and the pillages that came with that.

Di Stefano: How could you make money with an ethnic cleansing? Think logically. I am on the road with 40 men. I have to watch for attacks of the UCK constantly and I go into a village that I massacre. Do you really think that I have the time to let my men plunder all those houses and to let 3,4 trucks come here to take away the furniture and the TV's?

Humo: Yes.

Di Stefano: Man, even if it were possible. What do you think you can find in Kosovo? Those Kosovars have nothing, nothing worth plundering. And the Bosnian people owned not much more. The average income per year in Kosovo is 340 dollar. What can you buy for that? The idea is just absurd. We are businessmen. We just make a lot more money by smuggling in a truck with petroleum from Macedonia than by loot 3 villages. The risk, the effort and the costs are far too high to make ethnic cleansing profitable. It costs money to murder people, huh. You have to pay the bullets. You have to pay for the uniform of your soldiers and you've got to pay your soldiers, because no one murders for free. For less than 1000 Mark per month, no-one fights. Just run up the bills and then you'll see that it's impossible to get rich from that.

FOOTBALL UP

Humo: Arkan is no longer the president of FC Obilic because the team couldn't participate the European competition. He had himself replaced by his wife at the beginning of this year. She is gone now too. Are you still vice president?

Di Stefano: No, I resigned too. Mr. Raznjatovic is a very humble man. He resigned as president of the club because he didn't want the players to be the victim of the media smear campaign against him in Western Europe, he didn't want to jepordize their careers. That's something huh?

Do you think Silvio Berlusconi resigns AC Milan? That man has been convicted 4 times up till now and there's a fifth conviction waiting for him, to do with the buying of a player, a conviction that has directly to do with football!

We have nothing to do anymore with Obilic. The team is now in the hands of Mr. Nicolic, also a very rich man.

Humo: You were still there when Milan Lesnjak was sold to FC Bruges.

Di Stefano: Yes, that went very simply. A man came by and offered that many millions for Lesnjak. We said: ok, he paid and Lesnjak could leave.

Humo: Who was that man? The broker Branko Stojic, former keeper of FC Charleroi?

Di Stefano: Yes, he was the agent. He lives in Belgium, I think. And of course Stojic didn't come alone. There were other people with him. Belgian people, from Bruges, I guess. They knew perfectly whom they were doing business with. They did meet Zeljko (Arkan) and me then. If you wanted something of Obilic back then, you had to talk to Seljko and me. Now you won't see us there anymore.

Humo: Are Arkan and you really gone? Or is it all fake? Arkan and you have put unbelievably much money into the club. Is all that money back out now?

Di Stefano: Does that matter? That's not important, is it?

Humo: It is. Because that would mean that those resignations are fake and that the club still belongs to you and Arkan. And then nothing has changed.

Di Stefano: (threatening): We have nothing to do with Obilic anymore.

Humo: Why did you and Arkan put that much money into a football team? National spirit or a good investment?

Di Stefano: Obilic is now a club with 187 players, 5 teams, and an infrastructure that's way too good for the Yugoslavia of today. The new stadion of Obilic that we are building is visionary. In a month it will be finished.

Humo: So you're building it yourself. Just a minute ago you said you had nothing to do with the club anymore?

Di Stefano: (silence)

Humo: You've put a lot of money into the club. You will have lost that if you have nothing to do with the club anymore?

Di Stefano: Money is not everything and you should learn that too! Money in se is not a goal.

Zeljko and I know that and that's why we're so successful. We're not stupid. When we saw the international politics closed its doors for Obilic, Zeljko and I stepped aside. We didn't behave like gangsters, but like gentlemen. That's the art of being a man. Zeljko is a real man. And you wouldn't understand that. You should have more men like Arkan in Belgium. It would be much better. He is the last real man with principles.

Humo: I can imagine. How did you feel when FC Obilic had to play against Bayern München and there was so much commotion in Germany? People in Germany didn't want Bayern to play against the team of the mass murderer.

Di Stefano: The Germans should shut up. I went to dinner with Franz Belkenbauer and Karl Heinz Rummenigge. They were friendly. I told them the UEFA couldn't let politics play a role in sports.

Humo: Mass murder isn't politics

Di Stefano: (unperturberd) They understood this and the game was played. But in the end, politics proved to be too strong, even for Zeljko and me. Obilic can't play the European Competition this year. There's a lot of injustice, but you can't fight them all, can you?

Humo: In Western Europe, the clubs don't want it on their conscience to buy players from Obilic. That's why you and Stojic have now put up a new system: the players of Obilic aren't bought from Obilic, so called, but from an insignificant little team, FK Zemoun. Nehad Grosdic of Obilic went via Stojic to the Netherlands' Vitesse Arnhem like that.

Di Stefano: I know Grosdic, I know Stojic and I know Zemoun, but I've never heard about that system. We have nothing to do with Zemoun. We can sell players to who we want. The UEFA hasn't forbidden us that.

Humo: You said 'we'.

Di Stefano: We have nothing to do neither with Obilic nor with the stadion. Clear?

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS

Humo: You stay involved in football. You have tried to buy Dundee football club in Scotland. That failed when they found out who you are.

Di Stefano: Yes that's a closed case now. It was an interesting team: good players and in urgent need of a new stadion. I've been busy with a team in Italy and with Luton Town in England. And I've presented myself as a candidate for Portsmouth. I had 4 million pounds ready. But the owners, the family Gregory, decided to go with Terry Venables. That has cost that family a lot of money. I don't care. The club is in the hands of a Yugoslav now: Milan Mandaric, who has also bought Nice in France. And I continue looking. I'm 44 year old. My time will come.

Humo: Have you looked around in Belgium yet?

Di Stefano: No, but if you know any interesting clubs there, I am always interested.

Humo: They suspect you are serving as a middleman for Arkan, who wants to invest his money abroad.

Di Stefano: If Zeljko wanted to invest his money in Western Europe, I would find him a serious company, an energy company or so. FC Dunder for example was a small club. How can you white wash money in such a small club? God, have you journalists never heard of logic?

Humo: And those 4 million pounds for Portsmouth?

Di Stefano: You only white wash money if it's already abroad. Mr. Raznjatovic has no money abroad. Incomprehensible how a well paid journalist can ask such stupid questions.

Humo: You are tough on the press in Yugoslavia. Threats, blackmail, violence, law suits.

Di Stefano: I believe in absolute freedom of the press, although I do get nervous of what some journalists write about me. Mussolini is my example. He restrains journalists who were busy with abnormal things: homosexuals, lesbians,

It's true I took a journalist to court. He was convicted and he apologised to me. I made sure that he didn't have to go to prison. I know the minister of Justice very well, you see. He was a guest at my wedding. And there was another journalist of a magazine called Profiel. He had had a terrible beating of Mr. Raznjatovic in 1990 because he had written a dirty piece about him. Zeljko walked to the hotel Majestic and beat him up there.

Humo: I thought Arkan didn't use violence?

Di Stefano: Zeljko didn't get at him excessively. He didn't beat him any harder than I would have. I took that journalist to court some time later and I paid for his lawyer, so that he could defend himself. I am not like the newspaperman Robert Maxell used to be. I am not a legal bully that smuthers all criticism in expensive law suits and destroys journalists with heavy legal procedures. What I mean is: there's not a bit of restrains of the press in Yugoslavia and since the abolition of all the restrictions of war there is again full freedom of the press.

Humo: That's not hard. Almost all the newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations are in your hands. Everyone who criticised has been fired or convicted.

Di Stefano: There is still enough criticism, but less on me, since I have moved the centre of my activities from my business life in Yugoslavia to the politics in Italy and Western Europe.

MUSSOLINI & SUN

Humo: I spend or spent a lot of time in Belgium. Isn't it getting dangerous for you there? An investigation against you has been opened at the request of the British Justice.

Di Stefano: There are no investigations against me.

Humo: If you say so. What do you do in Belgium? Business?

Di Stefano: No, I've chosen Brussels as stand because I have political ambitions. I am now 44 and I want to force a political breakthrough. I started my own party, the Partito Nazionale Italiano. In 6 years I want to participate in the power in Italy, and the first thing I will make sure is that Italy leaves the NATO.

I am a unitarist and a nationalist. When Umberto Boss of the Lega Nord declared his independent Padania in 1996, I have said that, if he would really seperate Padania, I would have 11 000 Tigers come over from Belgrade to smuther that independence. And I would have done it too.

But I do think European too. I should have come up with my party in the European elections of this year in Belgium, because I understand the farmers in Belgium. I understand why they are angry. It's a scandal that the Belgian government allows the European Commission to manipulate them like that, what is that with the dioxin? There used to be no controls and then no one died of dioxin in Belgium either? Dioxin is not a problem. The immunity system in our body eliminates it all.

Humo: You might start a second 'Boerwar' in Belgium?

Di Stefano: I don't want that the farmers try to solve this with violence. Me and my party want to represent them at a European level. I think big. I don't want any immigrants from outside of Europe anymore and that's why I am building a European Nationalist Party. And don't start thinking about fascists right away. People always confuse nationalism with fascism.

Humo: But you are a big fan of Mussolini?

Di Stefano: I wouldn't mind changing my name into Mussolini. I wish I had a quarter of the vision and the talents of Mussolini. I am the only man in Italy who dares to say that. My grandfather has joined the mars on Rome of the fascists. He was on of the first members of the party of Mussolini.

Humo: You love Mussolini and his practices, but you're not a fascist?

Di Stefano: I am called a fascist because I do and say controversial things. At the time of the lawsuits against the German war criminal Priebke and the whole contrivers around him I have offered a solution for the problem on Italian television. I said: You obviously don't know what to do with that old German. Just put him in front of me and I will personally shoot him through the head. You can broadcast this on TV. I have no problems with that and it would immediately get rid of all the bullshit around Priebke. I am the man of the unusual ideas, but those are always based on common sense. If that is fascism, then I'm a fascist. For example, I have a perfect idea for the millennium. I suggest freeing all the prisoners in Italy on 31 December: everyone is cleared, no matter what he's done. At the moment there are 69 000 prisoners in Italy and they are costing us 50 000 franks each per week. Free them. Those who can't help themselves will soon relapse and end up in prison. The damage they cause doing that w

on't cost us more than their daily cost and living now. A lot of Italians are very enthusiastic about that idea. You'll see, you'll hear from us. We have the money and the ideas.

Humo: Maybe the Vlaams Blok is something for you. Do you know people in Belgium?

Di Stefano: I know people everywhere.