Špegelj Tapes

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Martin Špegelj meeting with undercover KOS agents
Martin Špegelj meeting with undercover KOS agents

Špegelj Tapes were audio and video recordings of conversations of Martin Špegelj with his friends which were secretly taken by the Yugoslav Army counter-intelligence service Kontraobaveštajna služba (KOS), then turned into a documentary film by Zastava military film center, and aired in January 1991 to the larger Yugoslav public.

In the conversations, Špegelj talks of arming Croatians in preparation for secession of Croatia and the impending civil war.

The Croatian leadership, including the main "actors" themselves, initially quickly dismissed the tapes as fake, claiming that the presumably innocuous videotaped conversations were subsequently dubbed. Their authenticity, however, was later all but confirmed, and Stipe Mesić was one of the first on Croatian side that admitted that parts of the tapes are probably authentic, although he claimed some of the sentences were taken out of context.[1]

The JNA leadership wanted Špegelj tried for treason.


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