Livingstone used to work as an investigator in the Department for Organised Crime and Corruption of the Bosnian State Prosecutor's Office, which charged four Lijanovic brothers, the head of the leading Bosnian Croat HDZ party Dragan Covic, Constitutional Court president Mato Tadic, and law professor Zdravko Lucic with customs fraud, tax evasion, bribery and abuse of office.
According to the witness, the State Prosecutor's Office was alerted to the case by Zoran Nikolic, who sent a seven-page letter to chief prosecutor John McNair in February 2004 bringing attention to the existence of a crime ring involved in customs and tax fraud.
Prosecutors conducted their first interview with Nikolic on 7 July 2004. Nikolic immediately expressed his readiness to fully cooperate with the prosecutors, but asked for protection for himself and his family abroad after receiving death threats.
Asked by the prosecutor what prompted Nikolic to offer cooperation, Livingstone said that it was obviously revenge.
Nikolic's primary motive was revenge, because the Lijanovic brothers had failed to pay him for a job he had done for them, the witness said.
Speaking of what he had learned from his contacts with Nikolic, Livingsone mentioned 50,000 convertible marks (25,000 euros) which Nikolic had received from one of the Lijanovic brothers in order to bribe judges at the Supreme Court of the Bosnian Federation.
The witness said that Nikolic had been given 22,000 euros in reward for the job, and added that prosecutors had receipts to corroborate this allegation.
Nikolic, who is currently abroad, should appear as a witness for the prosecution on 6 or 7 December.