ZAGREB, March 4 (Hina) - Retired general Mladen Markac concluded a two-day interview with investigators from the International Criminal Tribunal (ICTY) with a statement about the planning and implementation of the military/police
Flash and Storm actions, with special emphasis on the line of command and co-ordination of actions of the special police together with the Croatian army.
ZAGREB, March 4 (Hina) - Retired general Mladen Markac concluded a
two-day interview with investigators from the International
Criminal Tribunal (ICTY) with a statement about the planning and
implementation of the military/police Flash and Storm actions,
with special emphasis on the line of command and co-ordination of
actions of the special police together with the Croatian army. #L#
"I do not deny the fact that I commanded special police forces in the
Homeland War but I never ordered that anyone commit any crime and
forces I commanded did not do so," the general said in a statement to
the press following his ten-hour exhausting interview in the Zagreb
office of the ICTY.
During the interview, General Markac was questioned by the
investigators about numerous details of the Flash and Storm actions
even though they have not directly accused him of any crime,
Markac's attorney Miroslav Separovic told reporters.
The retired general told journalists that questions were put to him
quite provocatively such as that the Croatian Army had the task to
extradite ethnic Serbs during the Flash action.
"I assessed that question as being provocative and told them that at
not one moment it was the task of Croatian forces but their only task
was to disarm their armed units (of rebellious Serbs)", Markac told
journalists.
His attorney told reporters that in Markac's case it was a problem
that documents relating to the Flash and Storm actions still had not
been declassified, like it was relating to the Medak pocket, and so
he was not allowed to disclose state secrets concerning the former
two cases.
For that reason he could only refer to the documents and propose to
the prosecution to obtain certain documents, the lawyer said.
He added that the investigators attempted to claim that both the
Flash and Storm actions had been staged by the Croatian side,
referring to transcripts that Separovic and Markac were not able to
inspect.
The investigators presented a transcript relating to the Storm
action which would indicate that the action was staged, which is
ludicrous because it is well known that the Croatian leadership
decided on that action and there was no need to provoke anything
because it was a legitimate action to liberate occupied territory,
Separovic said.
Asked whether it was possible that General Markac who was now in the
status of a suspect would become an indictee, Separovic replied
that this depended on whether the actual events would be taken into
concern or whether this had to do with a politically-motivated
decision.
"I will respect any decision made by the Hague Tribunal. If it
judges only what occurred in the field then we can expect that no
charges will be pressed however, if a decision has been pre-empted
at a higher political level then we cannot guarantee that we will
not end up in The Hague," Markac said.
General Markac began his testimony before the investigators on
Monday when the main topic of the talks was the Medak Pocket
action.
The general presented documents from Serb military archives that
were confiscated following the Storm action in which it is evident
that the Serb side planned an attack on the Medak pocket but
Croatian forces managed to prevent just 15 minutes previously. From
the documents, it is evident that the Serbs in that region possessed
a great deal of weaponry and the local civilians were combined with
their military.
Markac also answered questions about whether the Croatian
military/police Flash action commenced after the staged incident
in the occupied section of the Zagreb-Belgrade Highway took place
as claimed by investigators and taken from transcripts of a
conversation taped in the office of the former president, Franjo
Tudjman which included former defence minister Gojko Susak.
General Markac denied these claims resolutely stating that
president Tudjman did not order nor did he do any such thing. He
presented investigators with charges that the Interior Ministry
raised against rebellious Serbs because of a blockade of the
highway. On Tuesday, Markac supplemented these documents with the
names of Croatian citizens who fell victim on the highway between
April 28 & 29, 1995 as well as the names of the Serb perpetrators of
those crimes.
(hina) sp ms