Earlier on Thursday, Justice Minister Vesna Skare-Ozbolt confirmed at a press conference that the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was dealing with the case.
Seks was speaking to reporters after a swearing-in ceremony for new members of the State Judicial Council. Asked if he was afraid of being prosecuted on the basis of command responsibility for the Osijek case, Seks rejected such a possibility, explaining that his role in Osijek in 1991 was to establish civilian government and that the military and the police did not fall within the authority of the Crisis Management Centre.
"Those units were within the authority of the ministries of defence and the interior," he said. "The Regional Crisis Management Centre had quite other duties and no objective or command responsibility of the president or any other member of the Crisis Management Centre can be imposed for excesses or crimes that were committed at the time. I therefore have no reason to be afraid of investigators from the Hague tribunal or any other judicial body."
Seks said that Osijek had been in chaos at the time, with individuals and groups operating beyond anyone's control.
Asked if he knew of the crimes, Seks replied in the negative, saying that stories of people being killed started circulating in Osijek in November and December 1991, by which time he had left the city.
Seks said that the Office of the Public Prosecutor was independent in conducting an investigation into Branimir Glavas, a former member of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party who served as head of the National Defence Office in Osijek at the time of the alleged crimes.
Seks dismissed Glavas's allegations of being the subject of politically motivated proceedings.
"Neither the Prime Minister nor the President of the Republic nor the Croatian Parliament have anything to do with the initiation of this procedure, which admittedly coincided with a political conflict imposed by Branimir Glavas. But there is no cause and effect to indicate that it is an attempt at settling political scores with him," Seks said.