"This is about errors of fact which the tribunal has made in the indictment and about mistakes being made by Croatian reporters," lawyer Srecko Ilic told a poorly attended press conference.
The ICTY has charged Stjepan Seselj as the publisher and Domagoj Margetic as the chief editor of the 'Hrvatsko Slovo' newspaper with contempt of court after in November 2004 they published a segment of the testimony of a protected witness at the trial of Bosnian Croat Tihomir Blaskic.
Margetic is also charged with repeating the criminal offence as he continued to publish the testimony of the protected witness in the 'Novo Hrvatsko slovo' newspaper in defiance of the ICTY order, issued in December 2004, to discontinue the publication of the testimony.
"In order to correctly inform the public it is necessary to say that Stjepan Seselj is not the publisher of the Hrvatsko Slovo cultural weekly and that the publisher is the 'HKZ-Hrvatsko slovo d.o.o.' company," Ilic said.
Speaking on behalf of the defence team consisting also of Bosiljko Misetic and Zeljko Olujic, Ilic stressed that "Seselj has never been the chief editor of the Hrvatsko slovo weekly, as often claimed by the Croatian media".
In addition, 'Novo Hrvatsko slovo' has no legal or any other sort of connection with the Hrvatsko slovo cultural weekly, Ilic explained.
The lawyer stressed that his client "can in no way be co-responsible for any criminal act with Domagoj Margetic, the editor of 'Novo Hrvatsko slovo' as since 30 August 2004 they have had no relations, either business or any other".
Commenting on defects of the indictment Ilic said that the document cited both Seselj and the HKZ-Hrvatsko slovo company whose director was Seselj as the magazine's publisher.
Responding to a reporter's comment that the magazine's masthead reads that the magazine was "published by Stjepan Seselj" the lawyer said that "it is not possible in legal terms to equate the company and its director".
Lawyers declined to answer questions whether they had recommended to their client to publish an apology to the ICTY so that he could refer to the precedent set up by the publisher and editor of the Montenegrin 'Dan' paper, Dusko Jovanovic, as an indictment issued against him for contempt of court was withdrawn after he publicly apologised.
Lawyer Misetic announced that he would challenge the jurisdiction of the ICTY for this case, as, he said, the UN Security Council established the Hague-based tribunal to tackle grave breaches of the international humanitarian law.
In her recent address to the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna, ICTY Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte placed the indictment against Stjepan Seselj, Margetic, Markica Rebic and Ivica Marijacic in the context of efforts aimed at ensuring the "efficient enforcement of the witness protection law" in cases which the ICTY was going to refer to Croatian courts.