A MAN accused of shooting the leader of a Croatian liberation movement
claimed yesterday that his alleged victim, Mr Nikola Stedul, had tried
to talk him into carrying out acts of violence in Yugoslavia 16 years
ago.
Mr Vinko Sindicic told the High Court in Dunfermline, through an
interpreter, that he refused, because by that time he had realised it
was not possible to break up Yugoslavia without bloodshed.
Mr Sindicic, 46, who denied he was a major in the Yugoslav secret
police but admitted to having worked for the West German secret service,
also claimed he had visited Mr Stedul, who, he said, he had known since
1973, in Scotland in August last year.
On the first day of the trial Mr Stedul, the 51-year-old president of
the Croatian Movement for Statehood, identified Mr Sindicic as the man
who had shot him and said he had never seen him before the incident.
Mr Sindicic has lodged a special defence of alibi to a charge of
attempting to murder Mr Stedul on October 20 last year in Glen Lyon
Road, Kirkcaldy.
He told the jury he had been born in Croatia, had left Yugoslavia in
1964 for Italy and later travelled to West Germany. He denied, in answer
to Mr Edgar Prais, defence counsel, that he had earlier attended a
''spy-training school.''
He said he had worked at a factory in Frankfurt with a man who was
president of a Croatian nationalist group and while he had helped run
the organisation's newspaper he was not interested in politics.
After a meeting with two West German Government officials anxious
about the Croatian emigres' situation he agreed to provide information
''to counteract Yugoslav claims.'' He understood this as helping the
Croatian movement.
Mr Sindicic said he later became a member of a secret Croatian group
in Stuttgart. He believed in its aims and only provided information to
West Germany that did not harm the organisation.
In 1972 he had been arrested by the Yugoslav police and had remained
in that country in a number of businesses from then until last year. Mr
Sindicic said he stayed in the country because he wanted his children to
learn Croatian.
He first met Mr Stedul in Italy in 1973, in a railway station bar, and
they had discussed an ''invasion'' of Yugoslavia by Croatians from
Australia.
Mr Stedul suggested that on the accused's return to Yugoslavia he
should ''continue with the old way of life'' but he disagreed with him.
''That meant indulging in violence?'' asked Mr Prais. The witness
agreed.
Mr Sindicic said that from 1985 to last year there were many phone
calls between the two men and that he felt the ''influential'' figure of
Mr Stedul could help him solve some problems.
He had visited Scotland in August last year for a week to discuss
personal problems, including moving from Yugoslavia to another country,
possibly Britain, with his mistress, who last September gave birth to
their child.
Mr Sindicic said he met Mr Stedul twice in Kirkcaldy in August and
then returned to Yugoslavia. It had been agreed, he claimed, that
another meeting would take place.
He had returned to Scotland on October 15 after receiving a message
and had gone to Kirkcaldy on the following three days but had not been
able to have a meeting with Mr Stedul.
The trial, before Lord Allanbridge, continues today.
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