"I will publish a public apology for violating the ICTY regulations in the next issue of Hrvatski List, that is if I will be able to work at all, Marijacic said in a telephone interview.
In late 2003 the ICTY indicted the editor in chief of the Podgorica-based Dan daily, Dusko Jovanovic for the same violations. The charges were withdrawn in 2004, after Jovanovic published his apology in the Dan daily.
"I did not want to obstruct the work of the ICTY or jeopardise the security of witnesses, I published the disputed article so as to point to contradictions in the proceedings of the ICTY Prosecutor's Office and that is not forbidden," Marijancic said.
Marijancic, together with a former head of a military intelligence service, Markica Rebic, is indicted for publishing the testimony of a protected witness from a closed session at the trial of Tihomir Blaskic in March 1998.
It was a testimony of a Dutch officer, who was a member of the NATO-led Stabilisation Force, about the unsuccessful attempt of Bosnian Croat Miroslav Bralo aka Cicko to voluntarily surrender after finding out that he had been indicted.
Bralo was sent back from the SFOR base in Bosnia because SFOR was informed by the ICTY Prosecution that Bralo was not on the list of the accused.
The attempt was to point out the contradiction because the Prosecution at the time accused Croatia of harbouring Bralo, but it was the Prosecution that released him in 1997, Marijacic said.
He stressed that according to his information, The Washington Post published the same facts four or five years ago, adding that due to the public interest he thought he could publish the article without consequences for the Bralo case and for the witness.
Commenting on the indictment, he said he did not receive it yet, but said that the indictment was unusual and that he expected protection from journalists' associations.
"It is scandalous and unusual that journalists are indicted by an international war crimes tribunal," Marijacic said and added he expected a reaction from the Croatian Journalists' Association.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) reported on Wednesday that it had issued indictments against former head of the Croatian military intelligence service Markica Rebic, journalist Ivica Marijacic and the editor and the publisher of the Hrvatsko Slovo newspaper, Domagoj Margetic and Stjepan Seselj, charging them with contempt of court.
Former head of the military-intelligence service Rebic said that the ICTY Prosecution is dealing with nonsense.
"It is really hard for me to see through the motives of the Prosecution to deal with such nonsense," Rebic said.
"With this, the prosecution is confirming that is has no scruples and that it is hiding its murky manouvres," Rebic told Croatian Radio.