"Our client Ivan Cermak has not violated any of the provisions of the Hague tribunal's decision granting him provisional release pending trial," one of his lawyers, Jadranka Slokovic, told Hina in a telephone interview.
Her statement was prompted by an article in the latest issue of Globus weekly, which said that Cermak had violated the tribunal's rules by leaving his home three times and that therefore he should be put back in custody.
Between December 29, 2006 and January 4, 2007, Cermak attended a birthday party and a New Year's Eve party in Zagreb and a skiing race on Mount Sljeme overlooking Zagreb, Globus wrote.
Cermak and two other generals, Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac, are charged with crimes committed against Serbs during and in the wake of military operation "Storm" in the summer of 1995. Their trial is expected to open this year.
Cermak voluntarily surrendered to the tribunal on March 11, 2004 and has been on provisional release since December of that year.
Slokovic explained that Cermak was not under a house arrest regime as defined by the Croatian Law on Criminal Procedure, but that his provisional release was defined by three decisions issued by the tribunal.
Under those decisions, Cermak may stay in Krapinske Toplice as his place of residence, Zagreb as the seat of his business enterprise, and Dubrovnik as a place of vacation.
"That means that he is not prohibited from going to a private dinner or taking his child to Sljeme," Slokovic said.
The Hague tribunal's decisions specify 15 conditions, including an obligation to report to the police on a regular basis and a prohibition to speak in public or to contact witnesses, and Cermak has fully abided by them since day one, the lawyer said.
Slokovic insisted that the purpose of the article in Globus was to harm her client.
Tribunal spokesman Refik Hodzic told Hina by telephone on Wednesday that the tribunal had so far received no reports against Cermak for violating the provisional release conditions.