"The general is still in a good mood. We continued our conversation about preparations for his defence. He expects the Croatian state to support him and become involved in the trial," said Misetic. The ICTY Registrar today confirmed Misetic's appointment as Gotovina's chief defence attorney and Marin Ivanovic's appointment as second chair counsel.
Misetic said that Croatia's Ambassador to the Netherlands, Frane Krnic, had offered at a meeting in The Hague with the defence counsel consular and other services to the general and his family.
Misetic and Ivanovic said they would attend a meeting of the government's council for cooperation with the Hague tribunal in Zagreb on Thursday, along with other attorneys from Gotovina's defence team.
"I am confident that there is good will on the part of both the defence and the government to set up a joint team to contest allegations from the indictment, which incriminate the Croatian Army, the Croatian state and General Gotovina," Misetic said.
Asked whether attorneys would propose that the government join in the proceedings as friends of the court (amici curiae), Misetic said they would.
He indicated the possibility for the defence team to include another attorney from the United States of Great Britain, considering that the trial before the Hague tribunal relies to a great extent on the practice of the Anglo-Saxon legal system.
Misetic expressed hope that the government would open all archives to the general's defence team, and announced that defence attorneys in Zagreb would open a special office to collect court files, documents and defence materials.
Misetic said he expected pressure on Gotovina and his family, caused by the great media interest in his arrival in The Hague, to subside in coming days, and added that Gotovina's wife Dunja would visit him in prison soon.
The defence team are confident they will manage to contest the indictment and prove the general's innocence, but they call on all political forces in Croatia to help them do so, Misetic said, adding that they expected help from the right, the left and the centre alike, from all who wanted to help, financially, with information, by giving testimonies or otherwise.
Misetic would not give a direct answer when asked if funds reportedly collected to help Gotovina hide would be used to finance his defence. Commenting on the remark that the Hague tribunal had discontinued the financing of the defence team in the Limaj case after Albanians living in the United States collected 150,000 dollars, Misetic said Gotovina's defence team would bear this in mind.
Asked to comment on President Stjepan Mesic's appeal to continue with the implementation of the Action Plan and investigate all who had been helping Gotovina hide, Misetic asked: "Does President Mesic really want that issue to be fully investigated?".
He said that the charges against Gotovina were thin or nonexistent, and that neither the prosecution nor any witness or document indicated that Gotovina had ordered a crime to be committed.
Asked whether the defence team would attack weak points in the indictment with an objection to the indictment or during trial, Misetic said they would use both ways because they did not want the trial to start with an unclear indictment.
In its objection to the indictment the defence tram will contest Gotovina's responsibility for acts committed after 9 August 1995, when he handed over his powers to civil authorities and left for a honeymoon trip, and they will challenge the concept of joint criminal enterprise and the way the accused was involved in it, Misetic said.
Misetic said he believed that the broadcasting of video footage of Gotovina's arrest and transfer to The Hague represented a violation of international conventions, done for the purpose of creating publicity for the ICTY.
Misetic would not comment on the fact that Govotina's indictment was read out in full at his initial appearance at the tribunal, despite the fact that the accused did not request it.
He said that such special treatment of the general as a trophy indictee of the ICTY could have a negative impact on the entire trial.
"General Gotovina's escape certainly has a negative impact on the case, but I believe that the judges, once they enter the merit of the indictment and hear witnesses for the prosecution and defence, will realise that Gotovina acted as a soldier and did everything to prevent incidents, killings and arson," Misetic said.
Speaking about the prosecution of such crimes, committed in the course and after the 1995 Operation Storm, Misetic said that the military prosecutor in Sector South at the time was today's Chief State Prosecutor Mladen Bajic, who conducted the implementation of the Action Plan to arrest Gotovina.
He compared incidents in Krajina 30 days after Storm to those that occurred after NATO took over Kosovo, when 700 Serbs were killed and 130,000 displaced. Stating that the areas in question were similar in size - around 10,000 square kilometres - he warned that NATO had not been able to prevent incidents either.