Several thousand Croatian veterans and citizens who were following the live transmission on a big screen in Zagreb's main square on Friday morning of a sentencing hearing for Croatian generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac before the Hague war crimes tribunal hailed the acquittal of the two generals with expressions of enthusiasm and shouts of approval.
While the presiding judge of the Appeals Chamber, Theodor Meron, was reading the judgment, the crowd was chanting "Ante, Ante!" and after he found Gotovina and Markac not guilty and acquitted them, the head of the Special Police Association, Josip Klemm, called on the citizens who gathered in Trg Bana Jelacica square to pray, saying that he was very pleased with the acquittal.
The jubilant citizens and veterans were waving Croatian flags and flags of Croatian Army units that fought in the 1991-1995 war of independence, while people passing through the city centre in their cars were honking in support of the generals.
Residents of Pakostane, the home town of General Gotovina, also cheered the ruling.
