Gotovina is not guilty of events which happened in the wake of the liberating Operation Storm. After 9 September 1995 he was on a honeymoon trip, and it was then when houses were set on fire, Damir Kajin told a news conference in Rijeka on Monday. He added that politicians who were in power at the time could have prevented houses being set on fire if they wished.
Kajin also said that Gotovina should not be held responsible for ethnic cleansing because the Serbs withdrew from the area in question ahead of the Storm operation in line with an agreement between the then presidents of Croatia and Serbia, Franjo Tudjman and Slobodan Milosevic respectively.
Kajin suggested that Gotovina's defence should be based on that fact.
He reiterated that Gotovina, who had been on the run for four and a half years, had been arrested when it suited Great Britain and the United States.
"Croatia's membership talks with the European Union were launched when it was clear that the United States and Great Britain had Gotovina under their control," the IDS official added.
Kajin said that after yesterday's rally in support of Gotovina in Split, there was nothing which could homogenize the Croatian right so much, which he said was good.
He also commended the Catholic Church in Croatia for a fair position in this case.