ANOTHER son of the HVIDRA president (the Croatian Disabled Homeland War Veterans' Association), a powerful Croatian Democratic Party (HDZ) member, and a long-standing member of the Croatian parliament Josip Djakic, yesterday made the front pages. Following his brothers Ivan and Hrvoje, who had problems with the police due to their violent behavior, the third son, 21-year-old Tomislav, was arrested on Wednesday for threatening officials, an offense punishable by up to five years in prison.
21-year-old Tomislav Djakic drunkenly threatened police officers
21-year-old Tomislav Djakic was held in custody after insulting four police officers and making threats against them on Wednesday afternoon in front of the Trnjanka restaurant in Zagreb. The County Court of Zagreb placed them in one-month pre-trial detention due to the danger of repeating the offense.
The police arrived at the place of the event after the report had been made about the conflict of several men. When he saw them, Djakic immediately started yelling and swearing, telling them: "Do you know who I am? You're all going to get fired." He also told them they could "suck his d***ck," insulted their mothers, and allegedly even spat on one of them. Eventually, he was detained in a police station, where it was determined that he was intoxicated with a blood-alcohol level of around 1.5. He spent the night getting sober in the psychiatric hospital Vrapce, and the criminal investigation followed the next day.
DORH (Croatian Attorney General's Office) announced that there is a reasonable doubt that the youngest Djakic, while being held in the detention room at the police station, with the intent to frighten the police officers, started yelling at them, insulting them, and uttering many different threats, such as threatening police officers to get them fired relying on a status of the member of his family.
The Djakic father, the HDZ member on the elections, set the standards for his sons
That's how the youngest Djakic's son, up to now unknown to the public, started following his father's footsteps.
Josip Djakic, a well known HDZ member, set an example for his sons. It's a good time to be reminded of his calm statement that he raised his sons well.
Judging by his acts, fine upbringing even includes sending out messages to his political rivals to fu*k off. Perhaps this sentence also falls into fine upbringing: "Ranko, Rajko, Zoki, Veljko, Rade… With these names, I thought they're establishing the Serbian government, not Croatian." Those were Josip Djakic's words in the midst of the 2011 election campaign referring to the ministers-to-be from the Kukuriku coalition.
Josip Djakic also showed his good manners in the parliament conflict with Nenad Stazic in 2010. The member of the Croatian Social Democratic Party then said that HDZ would fail in its mandate leaving the economy with a negative growth rate.
"You're laughing like an idiot, and you also look like one," Djakic responded.
But these are really the most benign reminiscences when it comes to Josip Djakic's outbursts, who is the HDZ candidate in the incoming elections.
Josip Djakic pulled a gun at a security guard and assaulted a police officer
Verbal bullying is not the only thing Djakic Senior does. According to what a Croatian daily newspaper Jutarnji List was writing in 2006, Djakic was known to the police due to much more severe criminal acts. At that time, they published that Josip Djakic was sentenced to three months in prison for a violent case in 1998, with a one year probation period. He assaulted a police officer.
Five years later, Josip Djakic pulled out a gun and pointed it at a disco club's bouncer because he had asked him to pay for an entrance fee. Threatening with the gun wasn't enough for Djakic, so he also kicked the bouncer in the stomach. That trial never ended, because the guard withdrew the police report.
There are several more violent stories about Djakic circulating, which didn't end up in court.
Josip Djakic has four adult sons, three of which are very much known to the police.
It seems only fitting that the oldest son Hrvoje has been following his father's footsteps.
The oldest son Hrvoje drove into a man three times, trying to murder him
In the summer of 2012, following an argument and hustling in front of a night club in Preko on the island of Ugljan, he drove into a Zadar resident Predrag Vukcevic three times. He was intoxicated with a blood-alcohol level of around 1.2.
He was put on probation in 2012, although he was charged with attempted murder. The County Court of Zadar sentenced the 26-year-old Hrvoje to a ten-month probation. Judge Dijana Grancaric declared him guilty only for aggravated assault. Grancaric established that Djakic didn't attempt to murder 33-year-old Predrag Vukcevic, to whom he drove into in January 2010, but he only seriously injured him.
However, on a retrial, Hrvoje Djakic was still sentenced for attempted murder, with only partial probation which implied seven months in prison, and additional a year and five months jail time, which, as it was explained, won't execute if he doesn't commit new offense during the next three-years. Djakic brought an appeal against the sentence, which was rejected by the Constitutional Court in May 2018.
Although Hrvoje Djakic committed the most severe criminal offense in the family, at least according to what was proven in court, the oldest son Ivan is most devoted to following his father's example. Soon Ivan achieved prominence in the media due to his violent outbursts.
By the way, 23-year-old Ivan became the owner of a hotel when he was just 22. He's well known to the authorities.
Ivan Djakic made death threats against a reporter, the father Josip Djakic then said to the reporter to fu*k off
It all began in October 2018 when the reporter Ivan Zada spoke to Index about Ivan Djakic's death threats.
"Josip Djakic's younger son made death threats against me in front of a dozen witnesses. He said: 'I'll beat this Zada person to death, but I don't have to get my hands dirty. I'll hire someone; I already know a person in Zagreb to do it instead of me.' He said that in front of many people in a bar from whom I heard about it. It's not the first time I'm being threatened, but it's the first time I have witnesses who called me immediately and told me everything. It's not a comfortable situation," said Zada, and added that everything took place at a counter of the bar in Virovitica.
Djakic's son, according to Zada, referred to his father while threatening. "Djakic's son said: 'He is talking about my father.' When he was told that his father is a big boy and can defend himself, he said: 'The father is not allowed, so I'll do it," said the reporter.
Zada told us how he called Ivan's father after the incident and told him he wouldn't allow him or his family to be threatened, to which he responded: "And what should I do? He's an adult. Why? What am I supposed to do?" before he started swearing and telling him to fu*k off. Zada reproached him for his vocabulary and said that he doesn't know to talk like that.
He said Merry Christmas to the Serbs with a picture of an Ustasha holding a Chetnic's head
Eventually, young Djakic was sentenced for threatening Zada but only with probation. His sentence was merged with the one because of a Facebook post, which Index was the first to report.
On Orthodox Christmas Day in 2019, 22-year-old Djakic posted a shocking photograph that depicts one of the Ustasha cutthroats from Jasenovac holding a Chetnik's head. The HDZ member's son posted this with the photo: "To all my Serbian' friends,' Merry Christmas."
In November last year, the Municipal Court of Virovitica passed sentence against Ivan Djakic for threats and incitement of violence and hatred, so he was sentenced to the custodial sentence of 11 months in prison, and it was also decided that he has to pay 20,000 kunas to the SOS Children's Village Croatia.
It should be reminded that Index also published the photographs of Ivan Djakic's tattoos of a monster with a nazi SS officer's hat. His defense was that it's only a character from a video game.
Traffic rampaging
On New Year's Eve in 2018, Ivan Djakic, also according to Index, was rampaging in his car, and, when the police stopped him, he locked himself in.
The event took place on New Year's Eve at the main square in Pitomaca, just around midnight. Djakic, as we were reporting then, risked the safety of the people at the square. He was turning the car in the middle of the state road that goes through Pitomaca and which wasn't closed, speeding up, revving the engine, and burning tires. When the police officers nearby tried to stop him, Djakic's son locked himself in the car and refused to listen.
At the end of 2019, he caused two more traffic accidents in five days. In one of them, he hit the turn driving 93 miles per hour in the residential area of Pitomaca.
On 11 January 2019, the police camera recorded him speeding at 83 miles per hour a little past midnight through Sveti Ivan Zabno.
At the end of last year, Djakic's son posted a video of him rushing at 121 miles per hour on a normal road in the middle of the night.
He posted that on his Instagram story, and the video was recorded in the evening from the position of the driver. The exact location wasn't visible, but it was visible that it was a regular road with a couple of houses next to it, but it's not clear whether it is a residential area.
Be that as it may, the car's speed from the video was multiple times higher than allowed. Besides the speeding, at least one more offense was committed - using a cellphone while driving. Both for using the phone while driving and driving above 31 miles per hour in a residential area, the fines have been drastically increased by the amendments to the Law on Road Safety that came into effect at the beginning of August.
How did young Ivan Djakic become a hotel owner?
We've reported about Ivan Djakic's hotel Divino, situated at the very entrance of Pitomaca, on a trunk road from the direction of Virovitica.
The hotel was opened in June 2017, with 20 modernly arranged bedrooms and around ten employees. A restaurant with 300 seating positions is also a part of the hotel. On the occasion of the hotel opening, Djakic Junior announced that the place would be supplemented with two large pools and tennis courts. The Djakovic family didn't build the hotel; the hotel already existed, and it was only adapted later. The previous name of the hotel was Aida, which was opened in 2007. Allegedly 3.5 million kunas was invested into the hotel, with businessman Stjepan Siroki and his company Zlatni Klas behind it.
A few years later, Siroki lost the hotel for which he blamed Djakic and the local HDZ. At the beginning of 2010, the Podravski list wrote about Siroki's charges, who claimed that Djakic got him into trouble by reporting the non-payment of 3.9 million kunas of taxes, who was allegedly jealous of his hotel. The company bankrupted, the bank got the land, and then the building was sold.
The hotel Divino is now the property of the above mentioned Ivan and Josip Djakic, united in the company "Djakic Thim." Djakic had been stating that his sons aren't the hotel owners, but the owners of a company that operates the hotel.
That company got the 90,000 kunas grant from the Croatian National Tourist Board for building a pool as part of the hotel Divino in Pitomaca.
Djakic has only got a high school diploma but had one of the highest salaries among the members of the parliament
With a high school diploma, Djakic is a mining and crude oil worker by trade. The tax relief for disabled veterans has enabled him one of the highest politicians' salaries, around €2900, which was once higher than the salaries of prime ministers and ministers.
He turned HVIDRA into the HDZ paramilitary wing
As a long-standing president of HVIDRA, he turned it into a paramilitary wing under the HDZ patronage. Whenever HDZ was the ruling party, they didn't come out on the streets. In 2013 HVIDRA announced a big demonstration after the government announced the 10 percent cut off of privileged pensions higher than €660, except the pensions of 100-percent disabled veterans and family pension for the children of deceased veterans. Djakic then told the government: "Go back to where you came from because you've never lived or worked for Croatia, and you've never fought for Croatia," before adding that the government is incompetent and should be replaced by another party.