INTERIOR MINISTER LEAVES MEETING WITH LAID-OFF POLICEMEN

ZAGREB, Jan 17 (Hina) - Croatia's Interior Minister Sime Lucin on Friday left a meeting with representatives of laid-off police after their attorney Vlado Marovic accused the minister of firing the policemen for the sole reason that they were Croatian Homeland War veterans and gave their jobs to "Serb killers", the Interior Ministry reported. #L# The ministry said a statement that after he had been insulted, Lucin left the meeting stating that regardless of whether the policemen continued their protest or not, his offer to place them in other government institutions or publicly owned companies still stood, i.e. that the ministry would fulfil its legal obligations towards them. The ministry claims that since the last meeting on December 18, two protesters, who meet legal requirements, were reinstated to their jobs and so the ministry has shown its good will and readiness to provide for them. Attorney Vlado Marovic nevertheless claims that at the meeting Lucin said that the problem of the laid-off police -- some of whom have been protesting in the sacristy of Zagreb's St. Mark's Church for more than 304 days -- was no longer the ministry's problem but their own personal problem and that they should seek their rights in court. Marovic announced that he would take the matter to the European Court for Human Rights. Marovic told Hina that he had told Lucin that he had evidence that the positions the policemen were retrenched from were not in fact redundant but that instead Serb nationals were hired, some of whom had criminal records while others did not have the required qualifications. (hina) sp it sb