In a phone interview for Hina Abramovic gave an account of the events on May 2, 1995, stating that he never considered the said event as something dubious from the military point of view and that he did not think about it until Zelimir Dragicevic and Ante Prkacin asked him to "sign a statement which they said they would submit to the Chief State Prosecutor's Office. I did not sign it".
Abramovic said that the signature on the statement which has appeared in the media was forged and that he would file a lawsuit.
He said that he did not consider himself to be guilty of anything and that so far he had not been contacted by any official institution with regard to the said event. Abramovic added that he did not have any contact with General Kruljac, deputy commander of the Croatian Land Forces. Officials at Kruljac's office told Hina Kruljac was on holiday.
Stressing that he was proud of his role in the Homeland War, Abramovic gave a detailed account of the events which happened on May 2, 1995 and the place and time when his former commander Kruljac ordered him to shoot.
Abramovic said that during sweep-up operations in the area of the eastern town of Okucani he was among riflemen who went before the brigade. When they arrived at a hamlet whose name he said he could not recall, they spotted a man running out from a house towards a field.
"With me were commander Kruljac, the commander of the 2nd Platoon whose name I don't remember, unit commander Pero Kovcic and his deputy Miha... The man saw us. Kruljac shouted at him to stop three times, but the man kept running. He ran a distance of some 200 metres when Kruljac shouted - 'Stop, I will fire!', but the man would not stop and Kruljac said - 'Sniper, deal with it!'," Abramovic said, adding that he followed the order.
"I hit him from a distance of 200 metres. I saw him clearly, him and his gun which he held in his right hand because at that moment he turned towards me. He was not a civilian, an old man or a soldier. There was no army there, he was a Chetnik, which is worse than the army," Abramovic said, adding that the body of the man, who was around 50, was put in a truck to be exchanged.
The State Prosecutor's Office on July 19 received a complaint in which a former member of the 3rd Guards Brigade, Zelimir Dragicevic, accused General Mladen Kruljac of ordering the murder of an elderly civilian during the 1995 Operation Flash in Okucani.
The Prosecutor's Office on August 2 forwarded the document to the Slavonski Brod-Posavina County Prosecutor's Office, which instructed the police to check the claims made in the complaint.
Chief State Prosecutor Mladen Bajic said on Thursday his office would make a decision on possible measures against Kruljac after it received a police report and checked the credibility of allegations against him.