Written by: Mladen Pleše Photos: Branimir Kralj
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Silvije Degen is undoubtedly a record holder among Croatian lawyers: over the course of his fifty-year career, he represented his clients in more than 13,000 court proceedings. Therefore, it does not come as a surprise that his book Odvjetnik svjedok vremena aroused so much interest.
Degen defended a lot of public figures, including generals, doctors, football players, businessmen, entertainers, tycoons, con men, murderers, criminals, international criminals, but also many common people, unfortunate souls, underdogs, people who were set up…
Degen, for example, defended the train drivers who operated the trains that collided with a couple of buses at the railway crossings in Pojatno and Remetinec, resulting in many deaths, and he also defended the air traffic control specialists in Zagreb following the collision of two planes over Vrbovec in 1976.
– It was a one-of-a-kind criminal case. Two planes collided at an altitude of 11,000 metres. A missile wouldn’t have been so precise – says Degen.
Despite being found guilty by a court of first instance, the first defendant and others were eventually acquitted…
He represented the students at the political trials in 1971, and he also defended a faction whose member was – inter alia – Đuro Perica, which was accused of planting an explosive device in front of the Zagrebačka banka bank near the Lisinski Hall, just before Tito’s arrival in Zagreb.
He also defended a man from Split before the Court-Martial in Sarajevo. The defendant was part of a group of protesters who clashed with members of the Yugoslav People’s Army in front of the Banovina building in 1991, resulting in the death of one Macedonian soldier.
Degen is eager to mention the defence of General Martin Špegelj and his men from Virovitica before the Court-Martial in Zagreb, as well as that of Professor Asim Kurjak. He also mentions being part of the defence team of the war criminal called Andrija Artuković. Moreover, he represented the infamous Serbian murderer and criminal, Željko Ražnatović Arkan, while he was still a minor, and he acted as attorney to the Jehovah’s witness called Ivan Čeček, who refused to perform military service and bear arms for the Yugoslav army on grounds of conscientious objection.
All these paramount political trials earned him the status of one of the most important lawyers from the territory of the former Yugoslavia. He came into the spotlight, however, by defending a number of murderers and other criminals
The thing that always ticked him off, he adds, was people asking him, “How can you defend a murderer???”
– After a while, I no longer bothered to explain myself, but instead turned the tables by asking: “How can doctors provide treatment to murderers?”
The case of Dragomir Bajčeta and Višnja Pavlović speaks volumes of the horrible murders that occurred on this territory. They killed a 10-year-old boy called Bruno Čalić out of cold-blooded vengeance. Their reasoning: little Bruno’s father was indirectly responsible for the death of Višnja Pavlović’s stepson, so she hired Bajčeta and they killed the boy together. They were sentenced to death and executed in Sarajevo in 1973.
When Ernst Lanz, a wealthy numismatist and coin dealer, was killed in a robbery in Graz, Zlatko Kralj was apprehended in Zagreb at the request of Interpol. However, he was acquitted at trial due to a lack of evidence. Despite this, the Austrians issued a warrant for his arrest, so he was detained in Switzerland. However, with the assistance of lawyers Ante Nobilo and Ljubo Pavasović, Degen managed to exonerate him before the Austrian court.
He also defended two minor girls, ages 16 and 17, who used a firearm to kill a taxi driver from Zagreb in cold blood. They confessed to murder before the court, stating they did it because they needed money to buy drugs. That case, says Degen, had a profound impact on him:
– How does one even begin to explain the crime in question? From the victim’s perspective, this is yet another murder of an unfortunate and defenceless taxi driver whose life was taken by two girls. Such cases are rare even on a worldwide scale. After serving their sentence, the girls got a new chance at life: one of them got married and gave birth to a child…
The homicide of nurse Sonja Nothig garnered unprecedented public attention and brought Degen popularity like no case before. Namely, the media covered the trial for months because Sonja Nothig was the wife of a well-known gynaecologist called Vladimir Nothig, who made a fortune performing illegal abortions. Women from abroad came to him en masse.
Sonja Nothig had a long-term affair with a plumber named Milan Borjan, who decided to get his hands on her fortune at one point. He sought assistance from Izidor Novogradec, the head of the Homicide Bureau of the Zagreb Police Department. They were to take her to Germany and help her start over with the money she received from selling her apartment. Borjan and Novogradec murdered her on the way, dumped her body into the Drava river and covered it with concrete blocks. However, the river withdrew, exposing Sonja’s cadaver. Degen attempted to prove that Borjan was not the murderer, but in the end he was sentenced to 20 years, while Novogradec the police officer got seven years in prison.
When recalling his most unpleasant experiences, Degen also brought up the case of Tihomir Mesarov, who killed the object of his affections due to unrequited love, murdering her father and sister in the process, as well as inflicting serious injuries to three other people. He was sentenced to death, but it was eventually commuted to life in prison. When Degen came to see him in prison and told him he was going to live after all, Mesarov got so upset that he died of a heart attack…
He also defended a number of psychopaths, people who feel no guilt or remorse for their actions. There was the particularly difficult case of the 17-year-old Srđan Mlađan, who first murdered the 16-year-old Elizabeta Šubić with an assault rifle for no apparent reason, and then went on to murder Petar Jančić from Sisak in the same fashion. Mlađan had never met any of them before. He stated in court that he killed them “because he felt like it”. When he was released on parole one weekend, he killed a police officer called Milenko Vranjković King as soon as he got out. Then he took hostages and took cover in a house. He contacted the media believing that this would prevent the police from killing him. During the trial, he assaulted his cousin, and the police subdued him by the skin of their teeth.
Degen says that defending psychopathic murderers is most difficult of all.
– Mlađan never admitted to being insane. These people regard themselves as the ultimate authority there is and are certain that their truth is the only real truth.
Mlađan, a serial killer claiming to have committed his life to crime, received countless letters in prison from fans who stated he was their idol. He even married a girl with whom he exchanged letters!
Mlađan will be released from prison in less than two years, in 2025, at the age of 44. Degen says that he has always been captivated by the dark side of human nature, but since Mlađan’s case, he has been attempting to figure out what makes people fall in love with monsters, murderers, and psychopaths.
The story of the forbidden love between Evica Krešić and a priest called Josip Rafaj made the papers because it was so bizarre. Namely, as their long-term relationship had no prospects, Evica started dating Srećko Uzelac, to whom she told about her involvement with the priest. Having succumbed to despair, he started abusing her and he eventually killed the priest with three shots. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison…
Talking about the murders in Zagorje, Degen explains how the people of Zagorje used to drink rotgut wines, “Noah and tart,” and even ethyl alcohol. This was, the story goes, the reason for a large number of murders and various other crimes.
– Back then, I could count on a new murder and new client every week. As a result, the running joke in the courts at the time was that any Tom, Dick and Harry who returned home holding a bloody knife, sat down at the table, and said to his wife, “Pour me a glass of wine and give Degen a ring!”
At that time, the old mantra “I’ll take this to the authorities!” was rephrased as: “if you don’t protect me, I’ll take it to Dr Degen.”
Degen also stood out from other lawyers in terms of style. He never left the house without his signature bow tie. Former president Stjepan Mesić recalls Degen telling Milan Bandić, whom he ran against for the title of mayor, “I got my Klub Zagrepčana, and you have your compatriots, who are sadly the polar opposite of civic culture and honesty.”
Silvije Degen was among the first and fiercest opponents of the death penalty. The fact that he witnessed an execution in Rijeka as a young lawyer also contributed to his conviction.
– It was a horrible experience. They put a target on the convict’s chest and the six executioners received six actual bullets and six blanks. After the volley, it was evident that the majority of them had missed on purpose. Only two bullets hit him – one in the neck and one in the shoulder. He eventually got the so-called mercy shot. Abominable; there was no sense to it, and it didn’t contribute to society in any way – he says.
In his interviews in 1991, Degen claimed that the death penalty was plain murder in the presence of the state; he stated that it was inhumane, unjustified, and pointless, so the death penalty was finally abolished that year.
Despite having undergone a difficult liver transplant and being regularly at the doctor’s office due to various side effects, he never lost his sense of humour: he still cracks jokes all the time.
Along these lines, he recalled a truly bizarre anecdote.
– Professor Asim Kurjak asked me to take some white mice to the laboratory for him. On the way, I dropped by the Lažni svjedok cafe, a mecca for lawyers and judges at the time. A few of them were already hammered, so I sneaked the plastic box with white mice on the bar. The waitress started screaming, but everyone, despite seeing the mice, simply pretended not to notice them. They merely started strolling out of the café; none of them even mentioned the mice, but it was clear that they were taken aback by the prospect of seeing white mice under the influence of alcohol – Degen chuckles.
He also represented Slaviša Žungul, an extremely talented striker of Hajduk Split who left to the USA against the club’s wishes and became a true indoor soccer star. Since he had not yet reached the age of 28, he did not have the right to leave Yugoslavia for a foreign club (according to the national football regulations at the time), so Hajduk took Žungul to court in New York, which instantly suspended him.
Degen teamed up with the famous journalist Pero Zlatar, and they organised numerous Žungul’s outings with the then mega-popular actress and singer Olivia Newton-John.
– She was at the height of her fame thanks to the Grease movie, and we arranged for them to meet at the legendary Studio 54 club. The media wrote about their idyllic love story and I’m sure that helped me win the judge’s favour later on in court, which resulted in his decision to lift the suspension.
In addition to playing sports, as a versatile young man Degen wrote for a youth magazine, was a demonstrator at the Faculty of Law, took part in three labour actions, led the popular forum Pet minuta poslije 82 at the Student Centre, acted in the theatre as an extra, spent two years working all over Yugoslavia as a simultaneous interpreter for German and taught at the School of Medicine in Zagreb.
He went on to become the founder and president of the Klub Zagrepčana, and after 1990 he participated in the founding of the Social Democrat Action party, first as deputy leader under Miko Tripalo and eventually as party leader. He ran for president of the Republic of Croatia in 1992 and won as many as 100,000 votes.
Over the course of his career, Degen, as he says himself, had more than 1,000 so-called prison cases.
– Because these cases involved people who were already incarcerated, I’d spent several hours in prison every week. Thanks to that, I got to know the prison system well. And it remains sheer terror to this day. The entire penitentiary system and criminal justice in our country are beyond terrible. When a small-time criminal ends up in prison, they basically become a skilled criminal and grow even worse after years behind bars. Therefore, it is not surprising that only six percent of former offenders return to a normal life after being released from prison.
Thanks to his long-standing friendship with Professor Asim Kurjak, Degen also practiced medical law for nearly 40 years, pondered the legal aspects of the right to terminate a pregnancy, and dealt with the ethical dilemma of malformed foetuses. In addition to teaching at the School of Medicine, he wrote papers on abortion and euthanasia, took part in legal and medical debates and discussions about surgical interventions of various types. He also investigated the legal concerns surrounding artificial insemination, ovarian transplantation, and transplantation in general. He is the co-author of the book titled Pravo na život, pravo na smrt3, as well as a number of other books.
