Presenting his defence before the Zagreb County Court, Matanic stuck to hisprevious statement that Zeljko Milovanovic and Bojan Guduric were responsiblefor the October 2008 murder of the co-owner and journalist of the politicalweekly Nacional, Ivo Pukanic, and his marketing director Niko Franjic.

Matanic, however, said that Sreten Jocic aka Joca Amsterdam, and his closefriend Slobodan Djurovic did not order the assassination.

He stressed he was withdrawing his earlier statement in which he falselylinked Jocic and Djurovic and several other public figures, such as retiredgeneral Vladimir Zagorec, with the murder. Matanic said that his previousstatement, which he gave to USKOK through attorney Zvonimir Zebac, was based onhis suspicions.

Matanic said that a day after he gave his statement to USKOK through theattorney, he was visited by USKOK director Dinko Cvitan who told him he did notneed to fear anything should he decide to make his statement official. In exchange,Matanic was allegedly offered protected witness status. He claims that theSecurity and Intelligence Agency was acquainted with all this.

"I believed them and now it turns out that they've stabbed me in theback. USKOK granted protected witness status to a heroin addict and pettythief, whose statement makes me look like a retarded idiot," Matanic tolda panel of judges, presided by Judge Ivana Krsul.

He used similar language to describe the witness Dusan Herceg.

During his testimony, Matanic was pausing and sobbing in an attempt toemphasise that his situation was not easy.

He stressed that he was "fed" the protected witness story by thepolice right at the start, even before he gave his statement to aninvestigating judge. Matanic said he received the same assurances from ChiefPublic Prosecutor Bajic, not directly but through the former chief of policeTomislav Kralj.

"If I was responsible at all, I would not have agreed to cooperate withthe police immediately. I did not want to keep my mouth shut because I hadnothing to hide," Matanic said.

To corroborate his statement, he asked that Kralj and Cvitan also bequestioned as witnesses.

Since the statement he made today was substantially different from any ofhis previous testimonies, the judge read out all the statement Matanic hadgiven to the police and the court so far.

Commenting on his previous statements, Matanic said his testimony today madeit more than obvious why he had made the previous statements and under whatcircumstances.

"I only stated some of my suspicions and not what I was sure of,"he said.

After the judge dictated the first part of Matanic's statement for therecord, Matanic demanded that a correction be made to emphasise that he hadearlier made false accusations against Jocic, Djurovic and Zagorec.

Robert Matanic is the only one of the six accused who decided to state hisdefence at the start of the trial.

The three other defendants - Luka Matanic, Amir Mafalani and SlobodanDjurovic -- pleaded not guilty to the charges of conspiring to kill thejournalist for financial gain in order to stop him from writing about organisedcrime. The remaining two indictees - Zeljko Milovanovic and Bojan Guduric - arebeing tried in absentia.