Former Croatian President Stjepan Mesic said that Croatia's national leadership knew about Croatian war crimes against the Serbs during the last war, and that he was present when a former minister, whose name he would not identify, reported to Croatian President Franjo Tudjman that the Serbian villages in western Slavonia were being burnt down in three shifts.

With that statement to the Rijeka "Novi list" newspaper, Mesic issued a statement for the first time since the Hague Tribunal passed the verdict against three Croatian generals for crimes against the Serbian population in Operation Storm in the summer of 1995, and he responded to the accusations that he allegedly forwarded the so-called "Brioni transcripts" to the Hague Tribunal, which, at the trial of the generals, were among the key evidence about the planned crime.