BRIEF NEWS BULLETIN IN ENGLISH NO. 4906 HINA Zagreb, 27 March 2003

HR-POLITICS-Politika BRIEF NEWS BULLETIN IN ENGLISH NO. 4906 HINA Zagreb, 27 March 2003 WAR VETERANS BLOCKADE ROADS IN 9 COUNTIES IN PROTEST AT VERDICTZAGREB, March 27 (Hina) - War veterans, gathered in their two associations -- the main committee of the Croatian Homeland Defence War veterans and the Croatian disabled war veterans (HVIDR) --, have asserted that they achieved their chief goal of protests and blockade of a score of roads on Thursday as they planned to "draw attention to political pressure to which the Croatian judiciary was exposed in the case of the so-called Gospic Group". The protest of the war veterans, on the other hand, was labelled by the incumbent authorities as an attack on Croatia as a democratic and law-based country. Expressing their disagreement with Monday's verdict of the Rijeka County Court's panel of judges that sentenced Tihomir Oreskovic, retired general Mirko Norac, and Stjepan Grandic, to 15, 12 and 10 years in prison respectively, members of the abo