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.