RIJEKA, March 18 (Hina) - The defence attorney of the chief indictee in the trial against the so-called Gospic Group at Rijeka County Court on Tuesday made his closing statement. Tihomir Oreskovic's attorney Zeljko Olujic asked of the
trial chamber to acquit his client because, as he said, he had committed no criminal act.
RIJEKA, March 18 (Hina) - The defence attorney of the chief indictee
in the trial against the so-called Gospic Group at Rijeka County
Court on Tuesday made his closing statement. Tihomir Oreskovic's
attorney Zeljko Olujic asked of the trial chamber to acquit his
client because, as he said, he had committed no criminal act. #L#
Olujic asserted that the witnesses and prosecutorial evidence were
"completely off track", that none of the witnesses had said
Oreskovic himself had killed civilians, and that he could not have
issued orders to the army or military police, which excluded
command responsibility.
The attorney said that Oreskovic had not had a military or police
rank during the period of time in question, so he could not have
given orders.
Speaking about witnesses in the trial, Olujic said that for the most
part, they were false witnesses.
As far as witnesses, the families of missing and killed persons, are
concerned, he said that they had mostly been instructed about what
to say in Serbia, and these people, he said, hated Croatia.
Responding to the closing statement of a representative of the
injured parties, attorney Slobodan Budak, Olujic said that Croatia
could not be proclaimed guilty in this trial, because criminal
proceedings could only focus on subjective guilt.
If this trial is about command responsibility, the first person to
have been indicted should have been Josip Manolic -- a former senior
state official and an official of the Croatian Democratic Union
(HDZ) -- for perjury and for "being the biggest culprit for the
committed crimes," said Olujic.
He asserted this was a political trial, aimed at indicting Croatian
major war volunteers. He said that the indictees were good people
because they had taken part in defending Gospic and Croatia.
Another Oreskovic's attorney, Bosiljko Misetic, said Oreskovic
could be guilty "only for the creation of the Croatian state".
Misetic said that the goal of this trial was not just to
"incriminate the Croatian Homeland War", but also "to prove that
Croatia was founded on crime". If this is proven, Croatia will lose
its international support, which, he said, "realises the concept of
former Yugoslav intelligence services' underground which wants to
return Croatia into Balkan associations".
Oreskovic is indicted for issuing orders for the abduction and
liquidation of at least 50 civilians, mostly Serbs, from the Gospic
and Karlobag areas in the autumn of 1991. At that time Oreskovic was
the secretary of the Crisis Centre for the Lika region.
(hina) lml sb