"I am profoundly irritated by the cynicism with which the Croatian public perceives as a sensational discovery what preceded Operation Storm in the Krajina (Serb-occupied territory of Croatia) in the summer of 1995," Branislav Tapuskovic, a lawyer and former friend of the court in the trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague, has said in an interview with the Belgrade-based newspaper Vecernje Novosti published on Monday.
The authenticity of the minutes of the meeting, where Tudjman said that "the Serbs should be dealt such blows as to practically disappear", was never disputed and it was perfectly evident from this record that there was a plan to launch Operation Storm with the prior consent of the United States and Germany, the lawyer said.
The former head of Tudjman's office, Hrvoje Sarinic, has confirmed that the Americans set territorial limits and ordered that the Croatian forces should stop before Banja Luka. That part of the trial was public, it was televised, and the records made available to me by the Hague tribunal's prosecution were hundreds of pages long," Tapuskovic said.
"I told the court that in 1991 the Serbs in Croatia were justifiably afraid of what was to happen to them in 1995," he said.