PRESIDENT'S OFFICE URGES PARLIAMENTARY DEPUTIES TO SPEAK TRUTH

ZAGREB, Oct 13 (Hina) - The Office of the Croatian President on Friday requested the speaker of the Croatian National Sabor to use his authority and urge deputies to perform their parliamentary duties in an honourable manner and speak the truth. In a letter to Sabor speaker Zlatko Tomcic, the spokeswoman for the President's Office, Vjera Suman, said Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) deputies Jadranka Kosor and Vladimir Seks had "tendentiously and intentionally launched untruths" at Thursday's parliamentary session. The letter also recalls Kosor's statement that President Mesic had on September 12, following the Gospic arrests, said that "the final settling of accounts with war criminals has started." This is the text the HDZ tried to impute to the President on several occasions and although the President's Office dismissed it on several occasions, this lie is being repeated. Although parliamentary deputies have access to the newspaper archive and can easily check and see that the President did not make such a statement, confusion is intentionally generated, the Office claims. The Office describes as dangerous a statement by deputy Kosor that President Mesic had said that "disabled Homeland War veterans were injured while travelling to Mirni Krovovi or from Mirni Krovovi to Trnjanka (restaurants)." President Mesic was referring to false disabled war veterans, who are spending the money of those who had actually suffered wounds at the battlefield, the statement read. Imputations are also coming from deputy Vladimir Seks, who quoted President Mesic as allegedly saying that "the late Matija Ljubek was killed by a Croatian army officer," the Office says, adding the officer was mentioned by a reporter who asked Mesic about this issue. Answering the question, President Mesic said the army would take rigorous measures if any Croatian army officer committed a criminal act, the statement read. (hina) jn rml