ZAGREB, 19 April 2022 - War Veterans Minister Tomo Medved said on Tuesday the process of collecting generals' signatures and a motion for the pardon of Josip Perković and Zdravko Mustač were "created" by President Zoran Milanović's Office and Perković's attorney Anto Nobilo.
"I hope that, in signing, the generals received more information about the motives and goals of collecting the signatures and that they will say more about it, as well as the attorney and the President's Office staff," Medved told the press.
He said this was a political initiative started by Nobilo by applying for an early release from prison. The generals who supported the initiative had a noble goal, he added.
Medved said some generals recognised the contribution of Perković and Mustač to the Homeland War as a mitigating circumstance, but added that this contribution could in no way absolve them of the crimes they had committed while working for the former Yugoslav secret service UDBA.
"In particular, it can't absolve them of the sentence delivered in Germany," Medved said about the life sentence the two received for participating in the murder of Croatian dissident Stjepan Đureković in Germany in 1983.
Medved said the decision to pardon Perković and Mustač was up to Milanović, recalling that in his presidential campaign he said he would not pardon anyone.
The minister said that since a letter in which several generals supported the pardon of Perković and Mustač appeared, he had received thousands of messages from Homeland War veterans and families whose members were killed by UDBA.
They are extremely displeased and expect there will be no pardon, he said, adding that this is causing divisions in society, notably among war veterans.
