The Ljubljana District Court on Tuesday ruled that there was no evidence that the indictee had committed the criminal act of slander and acquitted her after showing records of her statements at a 2003 news conference and footage made by the Austrian ORF TV station showing the three conscripts' attempt to surrender to the Slovenes at the Vic-Holmec border crossing between Slovenia and Austria.
"The court has established that I only insisted on the processing of the Holmec case following the ORF footage," Miklavicic told a news conference in Ljubljana today, expressing satisfaction with the verdict.
Asked whether she would now withdraw her accusations about alleged war crimes against JNA conscripts during the 10-day independence war which Slovenia waged against the Serb-led JNA in June 1991, the HMS leader said that it would now be hard to answer the question and added that the HMS was receiving new statements about victims from that war.
It is necessary for Slovenia to become aware of its international obligations and that those former young conscripts get fair compensation, she explained.
Slovene Chief State Prosecutor Barbara Brezigar has recently said that the prosecution has twice investigated the Holmec case, which nongovernmental organisations claim to constitute a war crime, and concluded that no war crime was committed.
The attack on three Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) conscripts carrying a white flag on 28 June 1991 in a battle for the Holmec border crossing, which also claimed the lives of some members of the Slovene Territorial Defence, has been made topical again recently.
"The case is clear, and the Office of the Prosecutor will not comment on various allegations which have no grounds in court files," Brezigar told the Slovene news agency STA a month ago.
She explained that the prosecution in the Slovene town of Slovenj Gradec investigated the case for the first time in 1991. Another investigation was carried out in 1999 when all relevant documents were thoroughly checked, showing that there was no suspicion that Slovene soldiers or policemen had committed the alleged crime, the Chief State Prosecutor added.
The incumbent defence minister of Serbia-Montenegro, Zoran Stankovic, told the media in Belgrade in late April that the JNA conscripts shown in the recording were alive. Two of them live in Serbia and one in Slovenia, according to the minister.
After that Miklavcic said that Stankovic had given this statement due to pressure from Slovenia.