Former President Stjepan Mesic appeared at the Zadar County Court on Tuesday as a witness in the trial of Sibenik-Knin County fire marshal Drazen Slavica, charged with the deaths of 12 firemen in a wildfire on the island of Kornat in August 2007.
Mesic was summoned at the request of the families to explain, in his capacity as former Commander-in-Chief of the Croatian Armed Forces, the Army's role on the island. He said he had learned about the tragedy from the then Chief of the General Staff, General Josip Lucic.
"He informed me that there had been a great tragedy involving a group of fire-fighters. He said there were fatalities and wounded, and that a Croatian Army unit was on exercise nearby and would be dispatched to the scene to assist," the former president said.
"The next day I went to a hospital in Zagreb to visit the wounded and the doctors told me they were all unconscious and had minimum chances of survival," he added.
When asked if Lucic had asked for permission to send the troops to Kornat and whether he or the then Minister of Defence, Berislav Roncevic, had decided to send a Croatian firefighting plane to Greece at the time, Mesic said that the President of the Republic had direct command of the Armed Forces only in time of war and that in peacetime he could command troops only through the General Staff and its chief.
"I was only notified about the firefighting plane. I was told that we had enough planes to put out fires, and I could only agree with the government's decision," he said.
The father of one of the firemen killed in the fire asked Mesic if some documents that had been unsuccessfully sought by the families were classified as a military secret and if so, could they be declassified, Mesic said there was no reason why the documents should not be declassified if it was in the interest of the investigation.
Mesic said that people who could testify about those things should be released from the duty of keeping military secrets, adding that several times he had publicly called on the Ministry of Defence and other institutions to ensure maximum cooperation in the case. He said he now realised that the cooperation had not been good.
The next hearing was set for Wednesday when the court would hear the head of Split County, Ante Sanader, and the former Minister of Health, Neven Ljubicic.
