Paying tribute to the victims killed during the aggression launched by Serb rebels, supported by the the then Yugoslav People's Army, Assistant Interior Minister Zlatko Gledec said Croatian police officers had been the first to stand up for the defence of the homeland and its values. This is how the Croatian army was established in 1991, and today it is the task of the police to "ensure peace and security for every citizen of the Republic of Croatia", Gledec said.
Emphasising that today Croatia was marking "the 15th anniversary of the atrocities in Dalj which were perpetrated for the aim of establishing a Greater Serbia", Osijek County Police chief Vladimir Faber said that the county police have pressed charges against those who ordered and those who committed that war crime, but that suspects are still not available to Croatia's judiciary.
Osijek Baranja County Prefect Kresimir Bubalo expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that "those who set fires, destroyed and killed have not yet been brought to justice".
Bubalo, who is perceived in the public as a close aide to controversial politician Branimir Glavas suspected of war crimes, used this occasion to recall that over the past 12 months he had witnessed "Glavas, who had set up the defence of Osijek and eastern Slavonia, having been crucified".
In this context Bublao urged all who knew anything about the Dalj war crime to give their testimonies and so that the rule of law would finally be applied also on those who he said had devastated one third of the Republic of Croatia.
In memory of the persecution of local residents from the nearby town of Aljmas, who returned in eastern Croatia in 1998 upon the completion of the peaceful reintegration a new path of Way of Cross will be inaugurated on Tuesday evening in the Marian shrine of Aljmas.