Ex General: Croatia Gained Weapons From Austria

[Aptrgangr]

Ex General: Croatia Gained Weapons From Austria

In an interview for an Austrian magazine, General Zagorec said that Croatia received weapons from Austria during the war.



The retired Croatian general, Vladimir Zagorec, who is awaiting a decision on extradition to Croatia, said in an interview with an Austrian magazine, that during the Croatian War of Independence, Austria gave weapons to Croatia.
Despite the UN embargo, Austria supplied Croatia with weapons during the war, said Zagorec in an interview with the Austrian magazine “News”. The magazine, which comes out of Thursday, made the interview available on Wednesday.
“During the embargo, we cooperated with many countries. This is how we cooperated with Austrian companies such as Steyr and Hirtenberger”, said Zagorec.

Zagorec: Austria also helped Croatia become independent
The Austrian news agency APA released a statement by the owner of the Steyr-Mannlicher company, Franz Holzschuh, which categorically denied Zagrec’s claims.
“Austria also helped Croatia become independent. For example, the Croatian Army used the sniper SSG 69 by Steyr with Hirtenberger’s ammunition produced in Austria”, claims Zagorec.
In a conversation with the journalists of “News”, the retired general claimed that in 2000, when he left politics, handed over documentation to the Croatian authorities about the purchase of weapons, and that copies of those documents are being held by his lawyer.
“We can easily reconstruct everything. Weapons, the flow of money, serial numbers and so on.
The question is if Croatia wants this, or the other countries involved”, said Zagorec with the explanation: “I guarantee that you can not export weapons without the approval of the politics. Not even from Austria”.

Gollia: The ministry did not issue a permit for the export of military material to Croatia
The spokesperson of the Austrian ministry of internal affairs, Rudolf Gollia, stated on Wednesday afternoon that between 1990 and 1995 the ministry did not issue any permit for the export of military materials to Yugoslavia or Croatia. According to the words of the spokesperson, there were not even any requests for such permits.
The owner of Steyr, Franz Holzschuh denies Zagorec’s claims. “Mr. Zagorec wanted to organize a meeting with us then, but in the mean time it was cancelled”, said Holzschuh. At the start of this year, Holzschuh took over Steyr, but despite that he claims that the company did not export weapons to Croatia during the UN embargo.
“We would not have been able to get a permit for export”, added Holzschuh.

Javno - Croatia



I wait until all this is confirmed, I read Austria delivered weapons like depicted above (on the left side), but I also read General Zagorec was a rogue for perculating money that was given him to puchase weapons...

[Marcus Marulus]

Croatia had to somehow purchase weapons for her own defence. It was extremely difficult in those times, because of the arms embargo imposed by the hypocritical West upon the whole of the former Yugoslavia. It meant: the embargo was in vigour for both Croatia which was at the time totally unarmed, and for the Yugoslav-Serbian army, which was armed to the teeth (being the only official armed force of a country that heavily invested in the military, out of paranoid expectatioons of possible confronations with the outside aggressors).

No prizes for guessing for which side in the conflict a decision like that (ie. embargo) was more favourable...

So it was extremely difficult to get arms. The weapons were purchased through different, mostly illegal, channels. Some people (like - allegedly - this Zagorec) exploited the whole occasions to grab large provisions and to enrich themselves thus. This is what the trial of Zagorec is about. But the proofs against him are very tiny, I declare myself agnostic as to the whole issue of whether he is guilty or not. He has not yet been extradited to Croatia, because the Austrian court does not trust the validity of the displayed evidence against him.

It is possible that some countries broke the embargo as well, ie. truned a blind eye to the export of arms to Croatia. Hungary did something of kind. I know nothing about Austria, this is the first time I hear it.

[Kernunnos]

The general is telling the austrians that if they don't help him getting out of a trial at the kangaroo court in Le Hague he will spill some austrian beans.

I couldn't agree more with him ... some weapon merchants will exert their non dubious influence to tame the dogs in Eurabia.

Smart guy.

[Heretik]

He's wanted by croatian authorities not Den Haag actually.
He stole from us when we needed and now he's bitching...