I had been reading a lot about Kajevic in the last few days and watching video, but I remained uncertain what to expect. During my years as a line assistant, I had questioned a few killers, including a contract murderer who gave off something—an aura, a pheromone—that froze my heart. But Kajevic was in a category of his own, a political leader whose charisma and rage had been enough to lead an entire nation into a realm beyond conscience. As someone whose professional life for the last thirty years had involved a sort of professional study of evildoers, I realized that today would represent a personal high-water mark. With any luck, Laza Kajevic would retire the trophy for the biggest criminal I ever met.
The detention center looked like the iso wing of many American jails, where inmates were housed who could not live in the general population, either for their protection or that of other prisoners. Along the solid white corridor where we walked, there was a line of avocado steel doors with heavy locks and tiny observation windows, too small to fertilize any fantasy of escape. Formidable-looking pay phones, twice the size of what I last saw in the US, and solely for credit card use, hung outside the doors.
But inside, Kajevic’s standard-issue cell surprised me, since it was far nicer than the quarters of minimum-security prisoners in the US, who are usually housed in barracks. Even as a prosecutor, I was never in the school of those who compared federal prisons to ‘country clubs.’ The worst thing about prison was that it was prison: You couldn’t leave, you were isolated from loved ones, and you submitted 24/7 to a regime of rules you’d never choose on your own. The additional incidents of American prison life in some institutions—the cramped double cells, the fetid air, the well-founded anxieties about beatings and sexual assaults—were punishments far beyond those provided by law. I always wanted anybody who complained about ‘coddled criminals’ to spend a day behind bars.
But with all that said, the prisoners of the ICC and the Yugoslav Tribunal who were housed in the detention center lived in more favorable conditions than a large portion of the people on the planet. The cell to which we were admitted was perhaps ten feet wide but nicely appointed with laminate cabinetry, an actual bed—rather than the steel shelf on which American prisoners typically sleep—a desk and chair, and a small TV. Truth told, when I’d been on the road, I had paid for motel rooms less inviting. The detention center also offered a tidy little library; a spiritual space, replete with Orthodox icons and even flowers; an educational room, where classes were taught and prisoners enjoyed access to computers; and a gym big enough for full-court basketball or tennis.
Kajevic and Bozic had elected to conduct the interview in Kajevic’s cell rather than the visitor center, where prisoners received their families and others. They wanted to minimize any chance that other inmates would spread the rumor that Kajevic had turned informant. Coming to Kajevic’s quarters also meant we could be evicted whenever they chose, and therefore gave Kajevic the small psychological edge of seeing us on his own turf.
Even taller than I recalled, Kajevic rose formally to shake our hands when Goos and I were admitted. The grand way he swept his hand toward the chairs set aside for us left me with a clear impression of the kind of expansive host he would have been in his presidential residence.
Kajevic took a seat at his desk, beside Bozic and a young male assistant making notes. Goos and I were given metal armchairs just inside the door, a few feet from the sink and the toilet. The uniformed guard who’d escorted us positioned himself discreetly in a corner and managed an unrelenting expression of abject indifference to whatever we said.
Bozic made a brief prefatory statement, repeating our agreement and emphasizing that he could end the questioning or decline answers whenever he or his client preferred. He also added, “As a matter of courtesy, I ask that you address my client as President Kajevic.”
I replied with a preamble of my own, stating that our promises were made only on behalf of our Court, to ensure that the interview had no impact on the charges at the Yugoslav Tribunal. Then I looked to the yellow pad in my lap, where I’d sketched out the areas we needed to explore. I knew what good manners suggested, but I couldn’t stomach any thank-yous, even though Kajevic was here voluntarily.
“We wish to ask you questions, Mr. Kajevic—President Kajevic—about events in the first half of 2004, especially what you know about the disappearance of four hundred persons from a refugee camp at a place in Bosnia commonly known as Barupra. We also want to explore the relationship those events might have had to a firefight between your forces and NATO troops in April of that year. Do you understand, sir?”
“I do.” His English was excellent. I expected as much, since it had been on display during his appearances at the UN and then in Dayton. He was reputedly fluent in seven different languages, but with Kajevic you could never be certain what was truth or puffery. “I have agreed to answer your questions, because I was curious to meet the two of you, Mr. Ten Boom, and because I am innocent of any role in this supposed massacre. I will tell you that now. And by saying that, I do not wish to imply that I am guilty of any other crimes, especially the supposed war crimes with which I am charged.”
“I understand your position,” I said.
“I doubt you do,” said Kajevic, with a quick smile that wavered between ingratiating and smug. “You might as well say that war itself is a crime.” He looked well, calm, even content, although that might have been because he was the star of the show, a role he inevitably enjoyed. He was already somewhat less paunchy than he’d appeared running in his cassock through the streets of Madovic. Nara had told me he hadn’t been eating, not as a protest of his confinement, but because he found Dutch cooking repugnant compared to the excellent cuisine of Bosnia. In the short-sleeved navy-blue jumpsuit of the jail, he seemed quite fit for a man in his early sixties, squared at the shoulder and strong through the chest. The beard under which he had hidden had been shaved, giving his face a fish-belly paleness, but he was on the way to reestablishing the monumental hairdo he’d sacrificed to remain on the loose. Darker roots had grown out below the white dye, so that at first glance he looked like he was wearing a headband. His nose might still have been a bit swollen and displayed a red lump, the size of a knuckle, near the bridge.
“In many instances, President Kajevic, wars are indeed crimes.”
“On the contrary. Violent struggle is part of human nature—and evolution, frankly, Mr. Ten Boom. One tribe is smiting another tribe on virtually every page of the Old Testament. It is natural for people to want to protect their kind and see them survive. Name an epoch when there has not been war. It is part of the human condition because it breeds strength in men and is nature’s way.”
Kajevic’s arrogance felt far advanced beyond the routine self-satisfaction of many middle-aged males. He believed he was Nietzsche’s übermensch, to whom no ordinary rules applied. He practiced law, and scrivened books of poetry I’d read a bit of, ridiculous soppy stuff that would have embarrassed any self-respecting teenager. He extolled his wife and fucked every girl he could talk into lying down. He burbled in public when he spoke about his beloved children, but was famous for publicly flogging his sons. Within his ravenous black eyes there was a Rasputin gleam, but even after a few minutes in his presence, you had to grant him his own premise about himself: He was an extraordinary fellow. Listening to him rattle on about war, I wondered instantly how Layton Merriwell would respond.
“The notion of war crimes is absurd, Mr. Ten Boom. Four hundred Gypsies are massacred and that is a war crime? How often were four hundred Serbs killed? My wife and children have existed under constant surveillance for twenty years, followed, watched through binoculars and lasers at all hours, their phones tapped. Even the sewage was inspected at one point for DNA. Believing I was inside, the Nazis of NATO blew the door off a small house and killed two children and maimed a third. But none of that is a war crime.”
I had resolved beforehand not to get drawn into debates with him. But his self-justifying crap was impossible to tolerate in silence.