On Wednesday Carla del Ponte, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), requested that the trial of Mile Mrksic, Miroslav Radic and Veselin Sljivancanin, known as the Vukovar Three, be referred to courts in Croatia or Serbia and Montenegro.
"Given that this is the gravest crime which has ever been committed in Croatia, we shall provide all the necessary arguments for Croatia to get this case," Skare-Ozbolt told Hina on the phone on Wednesday evening.
The former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) officers are charged with killing at least 264 Croatian prisoners of war after they were taken from the Vukovar hospital to the Ovcara farm outside Vukovar in November 1991. The three are being held in the ICTY detention centre in The Hague district of Scheveningen.
They all pleaded not guilty to eight counts of crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war which they committed by persecuting and executing Croats after Vukovar fell to the hands of Serb rebels supported by the JNA.
"The crimes were perpetrated in the Vukovar area and therefore they fall within the jurisdiction of Croatian courts. The decision rests with the trial chamber, and the Croatian judiciary is ready to take over the case," the minister said.
She added that the necessary technical conditions for the organisation of such a trial had been created with the recent opening of a new courtroom in the Zagreb County Court, and that the selected judges and prosecutors had undergone the necessary training to be able to take over trials from the Hague tribunal.
Commenting on claims that officials of Serbia-Montenegro were more active in a bid to get the Vukovar Three case, the Croatian minister responded that it was absolutely not true.
"Croatia has been active in getting all the cases that are related to it, including that of the Vukovar Three," Skare-Ozbolt said, adding that she and Chief State Prosecutor Mladen Bajic had discussed the matter with Del Ponte on several occasions.
Asked whether she thought the trio should be put on trial before the ICTY, she said that "obviously, the tribunal has assessed that it will not be able to close this case as part of its exit strategy, which is why it has decided to transfer it to a national jurisdiction."
Under the exit strategy defined by the UN Security Council, the Hague tribunal is expected to close all trials by the end of 2008, and appeals chambers have to finish their proceedings until 2010.
Croatia's Chief State Prosecutor agreed with Minister Skare Ozbolt that Croatia had precedence over the trial of Mrksic, Radic and Sljivancanin.
"I said at a meeting in The Hague that in case of the transfer of the indictment, I would personally represent the prosecution," Bajic told Hina on the phone on Wednesday afternoon.
He also said that the Croatian judiciary was better prepared in expert, professional and technical terms to take over the case.
"We are capable of conducting an objective and fair trial," Bajic said, adding that the new courtroom in the Zagreb County Court was equipped for holding such complicated trials.
Bajic said that the progress which Croatian courts had so far achieved in war crimes trials was yet another argument for transferring the Vukovar Three case to Croatia.
Amid speculations on where the ICTY would transfer the trial of the Vukovar Three, the president of the Vukovar County Court, Ante Zeljko said that in case of the transfer of the trial to Croatia, this court was fully ready to take it over.
Zeljko added that under Croatian laws, the Vukovar Court was competent for this trial because the massacre was committed in the Vukovar area.
In addition, this court has so far gained the greatest experience in holding war crimes trials, he said.
Zeljko recalled that the Vukovar Court had already issued an indictment against the JNA leadership for the 1991 war crimes and that the indictment covered Mrskic, Radic and Sljivancanin.