Deputy State Prosecutor Antun Kvakan told Hina that unlike the UN court's indictment, which charged Ademi and Norac with participation in a criminal enterprise aimed at ethnically cleansing Croatia of Serbs, the Croatian indictment describes the operation as the liberation of occupied territory, a legitimate military operation.
"Our indictment charges the accused only in a smaller part with ordering excessive indiscriminate shelling, while most of the indictment alleges they knew or had reason to know about the crimes but did not prevent them although it was their duty to do so," said Kvakan.
According to unofficial reports, he and two other attorneys will represent the prosecution at the trial which the media speculate could start early next month.
Kvakan said the chief prosecutor of the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Carla Del Ponte, personally consented to dropping the criminal enterprise allegation.
The trial will be presided by Judge Marin Mrcela. The prosecution will propose 140 witnesses, including UN troops who came to the Medak Pocket region after the operation and some witnesses from Serbia. The prosecution will also enter the documentation collected during the ICTY's investigation into the case.
The Zagreb County Prosecutor's Office issued the indictment against Ademi and Norac late last year, more than 12 months after the ICTY referred the case to Croatia, which the Office spent adapting the indictment to Croatian legal and judicial standards.
Ademi and Norac are charged with the random shelling of the Medak Pocket area, including civilian targets, and with failure to prevent the murder and torture of civilians and prisoners of war as well as plunder and destruction.
The Zagreb County Prosecutor's Office requested the accused be placed in custody due to the gravity of the crimes, which Kvakan said was nearly always recommended in such cases.
Under the indictment, which was agreed with the ICTY in early November, some 30 civilians and POWs were killed in Operation Medak Pocket between 9 September 1993, when it began, and the withdrawal of Croatian troops from the area on September 17.
The indictment alleges that the gravest crimes occurred as Croatian troops entered the villages in the said region, notably after an order to withdraw. It also names all the victims.
Ademi is on provisional release, while Norac is serving a 12-year prison sentence for crimes against civilians in 1991.