Djapic told a news conference in the eastern city of Osijek on Thursday that the recent incident in the village in the Zadar hinterland was unacceptable but also overblown.
"In Croatia we are witnessing today that on the average every day one war veteran (who defended Croatia) commits suicide, and this is no longer news but mere statistics. On the other hand, a few stones and inappropriate insults in Biljani Donji have become news with all what happened in Skabrnja (in 1991) being distorted and relativised," Djapic said.
He reiterated that he had unequivocally condemned the incident as inadmissible but also proportions given to it.
He called on Skabrnja villagers to show restraint and dignity so as not to offer justification to those who would like to present Operation Storm as a criminal enterprise and who, he said, claim that the war in Croatia had begun with Croat crimes against Serb inhabitants.
On July 25, four Skabrnja residents stoned four Serb returnees' houses in the nearby village of Biljani Donji and set a fire in one yard. In the meantime they have been indicted by a local court for this incident. The village of Skabrnja was a place where Serb rebels, supported by the then Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), slaughtered tens of villagers and Croatian soldiers in November 1991.
Djapic said that his party would demand in parliament a report on the application of the General Amnesty Law.
According to indications he collected, the law might not be implemented correctly. Djapic explained that he fears that many charges pressed against perpetrators of crimes to which the law could not be applied may have been changed owing to political pressure in 1990s and were described as criminal acts of armed rebellion so that perpetrators could be amnestied.