If they publish the list of veterans, I will file a lawsuit!

- Anyone who published the list of Croatian veterans would do an illegal act and face himself with thousands of lawsuits, not against the Minister of veterans Predrag Matic, but against the state itself. And the state will lose in all cases. As a veteran and a victim of the Croatian National War I will file charges myself. I don’t want the street to discuss my warfare – the former minister of veterans Tomislav Ivic and the head of Osijek HDZ reacted to the interview of current minister Predrag Matic Fred in Vecernji list newspaper.

He also called upon his successor to look through the archive of the Ministry where he can find thousands of documents about the veterans’ inspections. Every claim which was anonymous and signed was put into the procedure.

In the last few years more than 2500 people were crossed out from the register. The examinations are a continuous process which will go on and on, he says. They should be done, but the list of veterans shouldn’t be published. Croatia would be a precedent in this case and it is against the Constitution and against the Law of Personal Data Protection. By doing this the bad picture about veterans would be created and the worry among people who were seriously struck by the war – Ivic said answering our question. He also added that he doesn’t know if lawsuits were charged against 2500 people who were obviously fake veterans.

The former minister also gave an open letter to the gathered reporters. It is signed by 20 veterans from Vukovar and it is about the illogical warfare of Predrag Matic Fred.

Among other things, in this letter which was sent to the president, to the Prime Minister, to the associations of Croatian National War, to the political parties and to the media, they say that the current minister wrote in his CV that he had all the functions in the defense of Vukovar, from corporal to major. “It is well known that the late general Blago Zadro was a major general of the battalion in which Predrag Matic Fred was a soldier. After his death, the commanders became the late Marko Babic and Ivo Kovacic. Isn’t he ashamed to talk about dead heroes of Vukovar like that and take some credits that he never had? – the letter says.