Somborska Group members stressed that they had not committed any war crimes and that they could not be held responsible if some other members of the Uskok Company had perpetrated atrocities.
The group's spokesman, Sasa Malcic, also announced a lawsuit against the Nacional weekly over its latest article on this group that was in the context of an investigation launched into the killing of Serb civilians on the Drava River bank in Osijek in late 1991 and early 1992 and the apprehension of six former members of the Independent Uskok Company.
"We carried out our tasks honourably and we did not commit any war crimes, nor can we answer if somebody else from the Independent Uskok Company may have committed anything dishonourable. Furthermore, we could not have known about those dishonourable acts given that we were in captivity (in Serbia)," Malcic told the press conference, urging the government and relevant ministries to protect those who honourably performed their tasks in the war.
A former member of the Independent Uskok Company, Zoran Marekovic, called on Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and Parliament Speaker Vladimir Seks to explain why they allowed "defamation of Croatian war veterans and the Homeland Defence War".
Earlier on Thursday, the Osijek branch of the HVIDRA war veterans' association also held a news conference to condemn the apprehension of their colleagues on suspicion that they committed war crimes in late 1991 and early 1992 in the so called Sellotape case (or the Drava bank case).
The Osijek HVIDRA chief, Miljenko Kolobaric, said the arrest and detention of HVIDRA members Ivica Krnjak, Tihomir Valentic and Dino Kontic was politically motivated.
War veteran Ivan Poplasen criticised President Stjepan Mesic for having passed a decision reducing former Serb rebel Dragisa Cancarevic's war crimes sentence from 10 to nine years. Poplasen said that nobody had so far been brought to justice for the killing of more than 1,200 Osijek residents during the Serb and JNA shelling of the city.
Another war veteran, Petar Mlinarevic, said the media was wrong to write about the killing of Serb civilians in Osijek.
Most of those people were not civilians but "fifth columnists" and officers of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) "who were subversive agents and had a whole arsenal of arms", he said.
Anybody who kills a real civilian should be detained, Mlinarevic added.
Attending the news conference was Ivica Magdic, the husband of suspect Gordana Getos - Magdic, who said that his wife, who was in the group that was detained over the Drava bank case, was currently in a serious mental and physical condition.
All that has happened recently indicates that she is a victim of a conflict of political interests, Magdic said, adding that according to the latest information his wife had been transferred from Osijek to custody in Zagreb.
Asked by reporters whether the Osijek branch of HVIDRA was planning to stage protest rallies over Branimir Glavas's detention, the branch chief Kolobaric said there were no such plans as they did not want to exert pressure on the judiciary or give more reason for Osijek to be perceived in the public as a troubled city.
HVIDRA branches in Zagreb on Thursday issued a press release condemning the politicisation of the case of MP Branimir Glavas and warned that it was politicians who were undermining the basic principles of the rule of law.