He was commenting on his recently declassified testimony before the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague at the trial of Bosnian Croat general Tihomic Blaskic.
Asked about Croatia's engagement in Bosnia during the 1990s war, Mesic said, "Croatia did not intervene... nor is Croatia an aggressor".
"The Croatian army could not cross the Croatian border, as I've already said, without a decision by parliament or (then) President (Franjo) Tudjman, and there was no such decision. I've never said that our troops were in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but it's evident that our citizens were there," said Mesic.
He underlined that the information he had been receiving said that those people were not all volunteers. These "are issues of the responsibility of individuals and certain groups close to the authorities or within the authorities, but this isn't an issue of the Croatian state and its involvement in the war in Bosnia. The Croatian state was not behind that. Those were decisions, as I've said, made by some individuals for which Croatia cannot be held responsible".