"General Gotovina has a message: As for each count of the indictment, he says he is not the person described in those counts. He is innocent and will prove his innocence in court," Misetic told reporters outside the tribunal.
Gotovina said he had not waged his private war but one in the name of the Republic of Croatia and the Croatian Army and hoped he would emerge victorious from the trial, the lawyer said.
Misetic said that Gotovina was in a good state, "fully concentrated on the defence," and that he looked forward to "a quick and expeditious trial that will acquit him." The lawyer added that he himself hoped that Gotovina would get a fair trial.
Asked who was paying for Gotovina's defence, Misetic said, "No one for now," and added that over the four and a half years, while the general was on the run, his team of lawyers had worked free of charge.
"There is no point in agreeing to an interview with investigators if they insist on a full trial. It would be in the interests of establishing the truth if General Gotovina could show in an interview that he was not responsible for those crimes," Misetic said, adding that such an interview would give the edge to the prosecutors.
Dutch lawyer Gertian Alexander Knoops, who was assigned by the court to represent Gotovina today because his Croatian lawyers had not yet been accredited, told reporters that Gotovina was "calm and concentrated".
According to Knoops, Gotovina was pleased that Judge Carmel Agius had read him his rights and that the indictment had been read to him in full although he had not asked for it.
Knoops otherwise represents Jovica Stanisic, former chief of the Serbian national security service (SDB) who is charged with the expulsion of Croatian civilians from Serb-occupied areas of Croatia and with crimes against Croats and Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina.