Hrvatin reported Tadic to State Prosecutor Mladen Bajic, saying today Tadic had "crossed the line" with his questions about the Glavas case, which was then at the Supreme Court, and that he informed Bajic about it during an accidental conversation in a Zagreb restaurant on July 14, 2000.

"After (Tadic) said the verdict could be changed, I could no longer talk with him because he had crossed the line," said Hrvatin.

Asked by the defence why he decided to report a man who had only reiterated what the media were extensively discussing at the time, Hrvatin said he made the decision when Tadic claimed that he knew which decision the Supreme Court would hand down.

"I didn't know everything then. I didn't know who was behind it. I would never have believed that there was such brutal bribing attempts. I felt that a line had been crossed."

Talking about how he met Tadic, Hrvatin said the accused approached him at a lunch organised by Mladen Mlinarevic, owner of the Engineering Bureau company. He said Bajic was supposed to attend as well but could not because of official business. Instead, Tadic and the then director of the Hrvatske Vode water management company, Jadranko Husaric, turned up.

Tadic told Hrvatin on that occasion that an injustice had been done to Glavas in his trial, to which Hrvatin replied that he knew nothing about the proceedings and that he was confident they would be carried out professionally. Hrvatin said he interrupted the conversation when Tadic told him he knew the Supreme Court's decision in the case and that the case could be "returned to the panel which can change the decision." Hrvatin said he was "a little revolted" and left, and that the next day he called Bajic and set up a meeting to inform him of everything.

"I wanted to eliminate objections that the case file had been treated unlawfully or not well as well as any possibility of the public objecting or the proceedings being challenged at Croatian or foreign courts because of a formal omission."

After several days, Bajic confirmed Hrvatin's suspicions, saying that "something is going on here." "He didn't tell me the details, but it was clear that some things had been figured out."

Hrvatin said he then ordered that everything regarding the Glavas case be checked in the court's records but that he did not know which decision the panel of judges had made regarding Glavas's appeal against a conviction in two war crimes cases.

Hrvatin said he found out about the decision, which upheld the conviction but reduced it by two years, when it was written on July 30. He said he had never asked judges about a decision in advance.

Hrvatin reiterated a number of times that he had never leaked information about the work of the Supreme Court to reporters whose articles were often published "by design and to exert pressure."

The other four people accused in this case copped pleas with the prosecution before the trial but Tadic would not agree to an unconditional prison sentence of two and a half years. Ivan Drmic of the HDSSB party, journalist Sanja Marketic and Split businessman Srecko Jurisic were given suspended sentences of two years, while Tadic's wife Bozica Tadic-Cavar was given a suspended sentence of 15 months.

Glavas was convicted to eight years' imprisonment and serves the sentence in Bosnia, where he escaped before the trial court decision was handed down.