"The State Prosecutor's Office, which represents the Republic of Croatia, has refused the claim for damages which we seek because we believe that the government's responsibility in this case arises from the Law on Responsibility for Damage Caused by Terrorist Acts and Public Demonstrations," attorney Branko Seric told Hina. He would not say which families had filed the lawsuit nor state the value of individual claims.
"The damages amount to some 3.5 million kuna and they are sought by the families of three people who were killed in the shelling of Zagreb and another three persons, who were wounded," Seric said. He said that the State Prosecutor's Office had explained that the attack in question did not constitute war damage for which the state would be responsible and have to answer for under the Law on Responsibility for Damage Caused by Terrorist Acts and Public Demonstrations. No information on the case was available at the State Prosecutor's Office.
Seric maintains that the government is responsible for the damage because the attack constituted an act of terrorism committed on its territory.
In his request, the attorney referred to the indictments issued against Croatian Serb rebel leader Milan Martic in Zagreb and The Hague. Martic is in The Hague, awaiting trial on 19 counts of the indictment issued against him by the UN war crimes tribunal, including those regarding the shelling of Zagreb.
The indictment of the Zagreb County Prosecutor's Office of January 2003 alleges that Martic had ordered that the attack on Zagreb be launched from multiple rocket launchers from the area of Petrova Gora, some 70 kilometres south of Zagreb. He is accused of using terror to kill or injure as many civilians as possible and to cause mass-scale destruction of property. The shelling was ordered in retaliation for the military defeat rebel Serb forces had suffered a day before in western Slavonia, which Martic admitted before TV cameras.
Six people were killed, 39 sustained serious injuries and 136 were lightly wounded in the attack. One police officer was killed while deactivating a cluster bomb.