"Our commander, Croatian General Ante Gotovina, led all Croatian warriors and soldiers through difficult and bloody battles in a brilliant military way to win freedom for the Croatian people and homeland", war-time military commanders and closest associates of General Gotovina said in a statement that was read out in Zadar on Saturday.
The former commanders and members of the former Split Military District's Command said they had gone to war "to win freedom for the Croatian state and its independence", that they did not want to be "used as an instrument in settling political debts," and that as witnesses to all events in the war and Gotovina's honourable conduct, they "can testify to his innocence and raise their voice against injustices and untruths".
"We will never accept blatant attempts to revise the Homeland War and the more recent history which put Operation Storm in the context of an organised criminal enterprise," reads the statement.
It is also noted in the document that the indictment against Gotovina is "an indictment against all Croatian soldiers, participants in the Homeland War and the entire Croatian people".
General Gotovina's actions were marked by honourable conduct, humanity and insistence on military professionalism, reads the statement.
Gotovina's former subordinates called on responsible public and political figures to fully support the general.
"We ask the Croatian government and parliament to ensure that the case is referred to Croatian judicial bodies, make it possible for Gotovina to defend himself in freedom, give his defence team full legal and financial support, and to give Gotovina's wife her civil rights of which she was stripped unjustly," reads the statement read out by retired brigadier Marko Rajcic.