ZAGREB, Oct 4 (Hina) - Croatian President Stjepan Mesic on Friday released a statement following his testimony at the ICTY trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in connection with war crimes committed in Croatia and
Bosnia-Herzegovina.
ZAGREB, Oct 4 (Hina) - Croatian President Stjepan Mesic on Friday
released a statement following his testimony at the ICTY trial of
former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in connection with
war crimes committed in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. #L#
Mesic said he considered it his duty to help in establishing the
historical facts and truth about Milosevic's role during the break-
up of the ex-Yugoslavia and the creation of the Croatian state. As
as a witness, he said he could and had to speak only about what he was
asked, whether by the prosecutor, the defendant, amicus curiae or
the judge, he said in the statement.
By agreeing to testify before the Hague-based tribunal, Mesic said
he acted in line with the Constitutional Law which binds every
Croatian citizen to cooperate with the ICTY.
"In giving my testimony, I spoke as an immediate participant and a
witness of events from the time of the disintegration of the former
Yugoslavia and the creation of the independent Croatian state. On
that occasion, too, I had in mind the necessity that guilt, namely
responsibility for war crimes, should be individualised, thus
putting an end to collective accusations which are one of the major
obstacles to the full normalisation of relations and development of
regional cooperation among the former Yugoslav republics,"
Croatia's head of state said.
The trial against Milosevic, as well as the trials which are yet
take place against the inspirers or perpetrators of war crimes
against Croats or other peoples in war-struck areas in the early
1990s, will show that war crimes cannot go unpunished and that
justice, even though often slow, will be met in most of the cases,
Mesic said in the statement.
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