ZAGREB, April 8 (Hina) - The Defence Ministry said in a statement on Thursday the video recording of a meeting between General Ante Gotovina and military leaders after the liberation of Knin in 1995 had never been received nor
registered at the ministry's Military Archives and that it could, therefore, not have "disappeared" from the archives.
ZAGREB, April 8 (Hina) - The Defence Ministry said in a statement on
Thursday the video recording of a meeting between General Ante
Gotovina and military leaders after the liberation of Knin in 1995 had
never been received nor registered at the ministry's Military Archives
and that it could, therefore, not have "disappeared" from the
archives.#L#
Responsibility for the unlawful handling of Military Archives
material, which includes keeping the material in personal possession
and issuing it without authorisation, lies with individuals who
disregard rules on archive material, the statement read.
The video recording, which was first mentioned by Globus weekly, was
recently aired by Croatia's two national TV stations.
It shows the meeting between Gotovina, who is wanted by the war crimes
tribunal in The Hague, and military officers in Knin on 6 August 1995,
a day after this town in the central Adriatic hinterland was liberated
from rebel Serbs.
Transcripts from the VHS tape and the footage aired on TV show the
fugitive general severely taking to task the Knin area military
commanders responsible for what he describes as "chaos on the ground
(...) after the brilliantly planned and executed Operation Storm".
One of Gotovina's attorneys, Luka Misetic, told Croatian Television
last night that Gotovina's defence team had known about the existence
of the video recording as those participating in the meeting had said
it had been recorded. He added, however, that people at the Defence
Ministry had said the tape had vanished.
(Hina) ha