Seks told Croatian Television on Friday evening that he visited the State Attorney's Office earlier that day after he realised that, as he said, "some so-called nongovernmental organisation - The Youth Human Rights Initiative" pressed criminal charges against him accusing him of "covering up and neglecting to punish war crimes committed in Vukovar between June and August 1991 by the Croatian National Guard and the territorial defence".

Seks said he asked a deputy state attorney to explain what are the criminal charges against him based on.

I was appalled to learn that a representative of the youth Human Rights Initiative in October last year talked to Mrs Radojka Mrkic who, according to the initiative representative, called me on 10 August 1991 and asked me if I knew anything about the whereabouts of her husband and that at first I was very nine but after she told be that her husband was a Serb I became very rude and hung up on her," Seks said.

These are the reasons why the media are making such a fuss about it and these are the reasons why I should be facing charges on command responsibility for some crimes allegedly committed by the Croatian National Guard in Vukovar in 1991, Seks said.

According to Croatian Television, the Youth Human Rights Initiative submitted to the State Attorney's Office documentation on crimes committed in Vukovar in the summer of 1991. The Initiative claims it has testimonies by members of the families of those killed or missing, including the testimony of a person who claims that they notified the then interior minister, Ivan Vekic, and the head of the crisis headquarters for eastern Slavonia, Vladimir Seks, of the crimes.

Seks told Croatian Television on Friday evening that "the State Attorney's Office will issue a press release and state that the reasons which Amnesty International cited as sufficient for launching an investigation against him were not valid reasons but perfidious and malevolent construction".

Seks once again resolutely dismissed the statement by Amnesty International Programme Director Nicole Duckworth that there were sufficient grounds for opening an investigation into him in connection with war crimes in Osijek in 1991, dismissing as untrue her claim that at that time he had held a command post in the city and adding that he was under no investigation whatsoever not because he was protected by his position of a senior state official, but because there were no grounds for an investigation.

Seks stressed that Amnesty International claims were untrue.