Asked by the radio host about secret bank accounts that had been opened for the war effort at the beginning of the 1990s, Mesic said such accounts existed in Switzerland, Malta, Cyprus, the Cayman Islands and the Virgin Islands, adding that hundreds of millions of dollars were deposited in them.
Mesic recalled that during the 1991-1995 war of independence he had asked the then president Franjo Tudjman to determine what the money raised by Croatian emigrants was being spent on, but stopped insisting after he was told that the matter would be settled once the war was over.
Mesic said that everyone who had had access to the funds intended for the defence of the country and the money obtained from the sale of state-owned housing should now explain what they had used the money for.
"Some people joined in the war effort as paupers and emerged from the war as millionnaires just because they had other people's money at their disposal," Mesic said, describing it as a war crime.
The president said that today it was easy to track down all money transfers, but that some bodies were obstructing such efforts.
Asked to be more specific, Mesic said that several institutions had to do their part of the job, primarily the Ministry of Finance, which he said should be interested in tracking down such funds, the central bank, the police, the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office and the judiciary.
He underlined that he would publicly criticise each of these institutions unless they took action, adding that he had the government's support for this through an agreement in principle with the prime minister.
Commenting on the situation in the justice system in the light of the Glavas case, the president said that courts should be independent and that the law should be applied to all people equally.
"I want all the cases to be solved and I am against those who committed crimes against Croatian citizens," he said.
Mesic said that Serbian and Montenegrin authorities had been asked to initiate proceedings against about a hundred war crimes suspects who were beyond reach of Croatian courts and that he expected fair trials.
The president hailed Prime Minister Ivo Sanader's recent visit to the United States, but insisted that it could not be regarded as a watershed in Croatian-US relations. He recalled that there had been no pomp when he and the then prime minister Ivica Racan had visited former US president Bill Clinton.