Croatia's Minister of the Interior Tomislav Karamarko has said that the Counterintelligence Agency (POA), which he used to be at the helm of, did not independently or directly cooperate with the Hague war crimes tribunal and that POA analysed the authenticity of the transcript of the so-called Brijuni meeting, after which it forwarded the document to the Office of the Chief State Prosecutor.
Addressing a news conference, Karamarko dismissed as untrue former President Stjepan Mesic's statement that the Brijuni transcript was not used as evidence, asserting that it was used in the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic at the Hague war crimes tribunal by Milosevic's defence in 2003.
If you read the verdict against General Ante Gotovina, you will see that the transcript was used in that verdict as well, so the claim that the transcript was not used as evidence and that it is irrelevant does not stand, Karamarko said.
Karamarko also dismissed Mesic's claim that the original audio recording of the Brijuni meeting was the relevant evidence in the trial of three Croatian generals, and that the audio recording, not the transcript, was used as evidence. Karamarko also dismissed Mesic's claim that POA was in possession of that audio material and that it forwarded it to the Hague tribunal's prosecution.
After Gotovina's defence pressed charges with the Office of the Croatian Chief State Prosecutor against an unidentified person for document forgery, POA was given the task to check the authenticity of that document, Karamarko said.
"That was all POA had to do with the document," Karamarko said, adding that he was speaking about April 2005.
After the material was analysed and a report was made, the transcript was forwarded to the Office of the Chief State Prosecutor, said Karamarko.
"POA never cooperated, either independently or directly, with the Hague tribunal, neither did it forward that or any other document to the Hague tribunal," he said.
Karamarko would not answer questions from the press, saying that appeals proceedings were under way at the Hague tribunal.
Karamarko was at the helm of POA from 2004 to 2006, after which he was appointed director of the Security and Intelligence Agency (SOA). He remained in that position until his appointment as Minister of the Interior in 2008.
In May 2005, the Office of the Zagreb Municipal Prosecutor dismissed charges brought by Gotovina's defence against an unidentified person for the alleged forgery of the Brijuni transcript, establishing on the basis of investigations and the audio recording of the Brijuni meeting that the transcript was not a forgery.
In challenging the authenticity of the transcript, Gotovina's defence used statements by some participants in the Briijuni meeting who in the media expressed doubt as to the authenticity of the transcript which, according to Gotovina's defence, was the basis of the indictment against their client and of the prosecution's allegation that there had existed a criminal enterprise the aim of which was to expel the Serb population from Croatian areas held by Serb rebels.
