RIJEKA, Sept 30 (Hina) - During Monday's main hearing in the trial against the so-called Gospic Group of eight men accused of war crimes against civilians in the Gospic area in 1991, a report was read about events in Gospic at the end
of that year written by the then Croatian deputy interior minister, Smiljan Reljic, and sent to the then prime minister, Franjo Greguric. The report gravely accuses the indictees Tihomir Oreskovic and Mirko Norac.
RIJEKA, Sept 30 (Hina) - During Monday's main hearing in the trial
against the so-called Gospic Group of eight men accused of war
crimes against civilians in the Gospic area in 1991, a report was
read about events in Gospic at the end of that year written by the
then Croatian deputy interior minister, Smiljan Reljic, and sent to
the then prime minister, Franjo Greguric. The report gravely
accuses the indictees Tihomir Oreskovic and Mirko Norac. #L#
The trial in Rijeka continued after some dozen witnesses had been
interviewed in Belgrade last week, at the request of the Rijeka
County Court. The witnesses had refused to testify in Croatia
regarding the Gospic case.
In the report read today and sent to Greguric on January 29, 1992,
Reljic said the then president of the Lika Crisis Centre, Ante
Karic, "did not manage to coordinate the various military units in
Gospic", which was "used by his secretary, Tihomir Oreskovic, with
the assistance of his brother Ivica, an employee of the Security and
Intelligence Service at the time."
After the establishment of the Military Police, headed by people
under Oreskovic's influence, people began disappearing, houses
being looted and mined, the report states.
Reljic claims between 50 and 100 people went missing.
The report, read by the president of the panel of judges, Ika Saric,
mentions individual cases of abducted persons and documented
murders in the Gospic and Karlobag areas.
Reljic also wrote about the execution of a group of civilians,
stressing that "almost all those who were somebody in Gospic under
some kind of pressure" participated in the killing. He said in the
report that the execution had been ordered by Mirko Norac who had
said the government had ordered it.
Reljic reported there were "indications about more such mass
killings, but investigations into this were not initiated".
He said that Oreskovic and Norac were at the time members of the
Croatian Nation-Building Movement.
Commenting on the report, Oreskovic said "it was ordered by
political structures surrounding Josip Manolic (a senior state
official during President Franjo Tudjman's mandate)", that it had
been written tendentiously and contained 90 percent of false
information.
He said the goal of the report was to misinform president Tudjman so
that "people around Manolic could assume control of the military in
Gospic".
Norac stated the report was "a figment of somebody's sick
imagination", which was aimed at destroying the reputation of the
Croatian army, not only locally, but of its top commanders and the
defence minister as well. Norac said the letter was unimportant to
him.
Two witnesses who were to give their testimonies in defence of
Stjepan Grandic today failed to turn up, but sent written excuses to
the court.
The trial continues on Tuesday.
(hina) lml sb