Norac and Oreskovic each requested the Constitutional Court to quash the Supreme Court's ruling confirming the Rijeka County Court verdict from 2003, and to order a retrial, claiming that both rulings were based on illegal evidence, an unauthentic audio-recording of a conversation between two witnesses in the trial.
The conversation in question was one between former Assistant Interior Minister Smiljan Reljic and former Gospic Police Department chief Ivan Dasovic, who informs Reljic in the recording about the disappearance and execution of civilians in Gospic.
The Rijeka County Court verdict was based also on this cassette, whose authenticity was confirmed by Reljic and Dasovic and expert witnesses.
The Rijeka County Court in September 2002 turned down a motion by defence counsel to exclude the cassette as an illegal piece of evidence, and a month and half later the Supreme Court upheld this decision, ruling that the cassette was a legal piece of evidence on the basis of which a verdict can be passed. The courts ruled that the cassette did not contain an intelligence conversation, as claimed by Norac's and Oreskovic's defence counsel, because Reljic and Dasovic were senior police officials who were not talking within an investigation, but were discussing the disappearance and killing of civilians.
The courts decided that the audio-recording could not be considered illegal also because it was made with the consent of both witnesses, whose rights were not violated, and that it was not obtained unlawfully.
The Constitutional Court cited the rulings of the Rijeka County Court and the Supreme Court, stating that Norac and Oreskovic had failed to present new reasons supporting their claim that the cassette was illegal. The Constitutional Court made the ruling two weeks ago, and recently published it on its web site.
The Constitutional Court decided that neither Norac's nor Oreskovic's rights had been violated.
The Rijeka County Court ruled that on 17 October 1991 Oreskovic and Norac, former commander of the 118th Gospic Brigade, had attended a meeting in Gospic at which they ordered the execution of Serb and Croat civilians from the area of Gospic and Karlobag. The following day, those civilians were killed at Lipova Glavica near Gospic.
It was established that Oreskovic was commander of the Military Police, and not a civilian, and that it was him who ordered the unlawful arrest of civilians who were killed.