HEARING AT TRIAL AGAINST "FERAL" ENDS, VERDICT THURSDAY

ZAGREB, Sept 25 (Hina) - The main court hearing at a trial against the editor-in-chief and a reporter of Split weekly "Feral Tribune", Viktor Ivancic and Marinko Culic respectively, ended on Wednesday before some 100 spectators at the Zagreb Municipal Court. Judge Marin Mrcela said he would announce a verdict on Thursday, 26 September. The proceedings were instituted by the municipal state attorney's office and Ivancic is charged with libeling and insulting President Franjo Tudjman in a text on the cover of Feral's supplement "Glede i unatoc" of 29 April 1996, as well as in a photograph showing Tudjman and Ante Pavelic (head of state of the Independent State of Croatia in WW2) in the same issue. Culic is charged with libeling Tudjman in an article titled "Bones in the Mixer" in the same issue of Feral. Prosecutor Visnja Loncar recalled Tudjman's participation in WW2 and his anti-fascist and anti-Communist commitment, as well as his historical role in the making of the Croatian state. She stressed that the incriminating articles represented "no criticism or satire, but a writer's pamphlet betraying personal animosity and an affected humour of its authors, whose only aim is insulting and libeling President Tudjman." The aim of the prosecution was not prevention of press freedoms, Loncar said, adding that these were exclusively criminal offenses of libel and insult, in this case of President Tudjman. Defense attorneys made detailed closing arguments, in which they requested of the Court that Ivancic and Culic be freed of all charges. According to their theses, Ivancic and Culic made value judgments which could not be proved true or false and the trial was in truth a trial against the freedom of public speech and a political trial. (hina) ha jn 251822 MET sep 96