The head of Faber's office, Stipe Rimac, told reporters after the closed-door meeting that its purpose was to inform representatives of those associations about police activities in the Osijek area. The meeting was attended by representatives of eight local Homeland War associations.
The head of the association gathering former inmates of Serb concentration camps, Tomislav Hajdukovic, said after the meeting that it was unfair of Faber to accuse war veteran Adonis Hodzic of lying about being brought in for police questioning. The associations requested that the case be investigated because Hodzic is a war veteran who spent 707 days in Serb camps, he said.
Hodzic, a war veteran with 70-percent disability, on August 17 accused members of the 1st police station in Osijek of bringing him in for questioning without a court warrant.
Hajdukovic said the associations objected to the fact that the police were forgetting about their obligation to investigate crimes committed by Serbs in Osijek, the county and elsewhere in Croatia.
County chief of police Faber told reporters after the meeting that part of the media were misinforming the public about the ongoing investigations into events which occurred during the war in Osijek in 1991 and 1992.
Faber told Hina that members of the Osijek County police department did not talk to Adonis Hodzic, let alone unlawfully arrested him, extorted evidence or abused him.
Faber confirmed that Interior Minister Ivica Kirin had sent an internal control unit to Osijek to check Hodzic's claims.
Before the meeting with Faber, the coordinating body of 11 Homeland War associations from the county held a meeting at which they condemned what they called continued attempts to criminalise the Homeland War.
Of the 11 associations, some refused to go to the meeting with Faber, saying that the police should investigate drug and crime-related problems in Osijek rather than harass war veterans.
Faber said he had proposed holding the meeting in line with the law on police in order to inform the associations about police activities in the area of Osijek.
Faber said he was surprised by statements issued by county prefect Kresimir Bubalo and Osijek mayor Anto Djapic criticising the police department's methods of work.