The news briefing was held over the latest media speculations about annexes to the indictment which the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has issued against retired Croatian Army Generals Ante Gotovina, Mladen Markac and Ivan Cermak.
Nobody else has been indicted, there are not any new names under investigation. There is no mention in the indictment of the names mentioned in the media and public nor is there any annex to the indictment. The indictment's annex would ipso facto imply that this is about the enlargement of the indictment, Sanader said stressing that there was no new indictments and investigations.
On Monday and Tuesday some media in Croatia reported on the alleged confidential annex to the ICTY indictment containing the names of some former high-ranking Croatian military officials and ministers.
The Croatian Government sticks to its known and unchanged position that it is unacceptable to call the 1995 military and police Operation Storm a joint criminal enterprise, the Croatian premier said.
He added that his cabinet "persists in the assessment that Operation Storm was a legitimate defence operation aimed at liberating the then occupied areas of the sovereign and internationally recognised Republic of Croatia in accordance with the international law and UN Security Council relevant documents".
Sanader recalled that under UN Security Council Resolution 1503, all investigative proceedings of the ICTY had to be completed until 31 December 2004 which means that after that there would be no new probes or indictments.
He said that persons whose names had been recently mentioned in the media in connection to the latest allegations might be called before the ICTY only as witnesses.
Responding to questions from the press, Sanader said that the indictment against the three above-mentioned general had been existing for several years and that he also wondered why now some names had been added in this context and at whose request.
But what is more important and what I am interested in is the character of this paper. It is no indictment and there are no new investigations and these people cannot be indicted, the Croatian PM reiterated.
A regular weekly press briefing of the Hague-based UN war crimes tribunal has been postponed from Wednesday to Thursday and nobody either in the tribunal or in the Office of the Prosecutor was available to comment on this case.
According to some sources close to lawyers, the defence teams of generals Markac and Gotovina last week asked the tribunal to declassify an annex to the indictment it issued against their clients. It has not been known when the tribunal may decide on the lawyers' motion.