Municipal head Nediljko Bubnjar said the Skabrnja authorities did not approve of the incident or object to the rule of law, but appealed for more sensibility to the town which he said had had the highest number of victims per inhabitants during the 1990s Homeland War.
On July 25, four Skabrnja residents stoned four Serb returnees' houses in Biljani Donji and set a fire in one yard. Bubnjar said that some media, in covering state officials' visits to the village following the incident, underlined that Skabrnja residents had threatened to set fire to Serb returnees' houses in Biljani Donji.
"Serb returnees are being depicted as victims of aggression from Skabrnja, which is not true," Bubnjar said and added that there had been cases of Serb returnees provoking people from Skabrnja.
The municipal head said nobody had heard Serb returnees regretting or apologising over the crimes which had occurred in Skabrnja during the war. He voiced hope the four perpetrators of this week's incident would not be drastically punished.
"I am once again underlining that we don't justify their action, we object to it, but the war wounds and today's existential hardships are big and this must be understood," Bubnjar said, adding the incident had been an incautious action committed under the influence of alcohol.
At the proposal of the Benkovac Municipal Prosecutor's Office, the County Court in Zadar today set detention for the four perpetrators on charges of racial and other discrimination. They will remain in custody until the main hearing.