President Zoran Milanovic said on Tuesday that the December 1991 murder of the 12-year-old Serb girl Aleksandra Zec and her parents in Zagreb was "a dreadful story," but that there were "more dreadful stories and crimes perpetrated by the other side in the war," state agency Hina reported.

During his visit to the town of Valpovo, the president was asked about the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the murder of the Zec family in Zagreb later in the day and whether Croatia had taken the proper attitude to that case.

Milanovic said that the two surviving members of the family had been invited to the government when he had been prime minister and that they had been paid damages.

“What else should be done,” he wondered, underscoring that he did not belittle anybody’s death.

Two surviving family members, Dusan and Gordana Zec, were paid one-off compensation in 2004.

Members of a special police unit under Tomislav Mercep came to the home of the Zec family in Zagreb’s Trešnjevka neighbourhood shortly after 11 pm on 7 December 1991 and shot dead 38-year-old Mihajlo Zec as he tried to escape. Marija and Aleksandra (12), who witnessed the murder, were then taken in a van to Mount Medvednica, overlooking Zagreb, where they were killed.

I have been mentioning Vukovar these days. The city was systematically destroyed, not on impulse … and not at the end of the war as Srebrenica was, but systematically for two months… people were executed… Does that amount to genocide? Will we discuss that or stop this nonsense? Because in this way, it all becomes nonsense, Milanovic told the press.

Commenting on other dreadful war cases, Milanovic cited the example of 40 elderly in Promina near the town of Drnis who were killed in their homes in 1993 by Serb paramilitaries out of revenge while they were allegedly under the protection of UN forces (UNPROFOR).

“I have never seen Milorad Pupovac (the Croatian Serb leader) visit that place. And I went to Grubori, Varivode, Srb and Jasenovac,” Milanovic said, citing the sites where war crimes were committed against ethnic Serbs.

He accused Pupovac of foul play and of immoral and unbecoming behaviour.

Milanovic accused the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) of supporting Pupovac in that “foul play”.

He criticised Prime Minister Andrej Plenković and HDZ officials for failing to react to the false accusations that Croatia had committed ethnic cleansing.

“Knin was not ethnically cleansed (in 1995), they fled, and nearly 30% of them (ethnic Serbs) have come back,” he said.

“Let me see if anybody who fled Serbia or the Bosnian Serb entity has come back to their home. In Croatia, people have come back (after the war),” he added.

As for the topic of renaming again a square or a street in Zagreb after Josip Broz Tito, as recently suggested by an SDP official, Milanovic said that he did not know.

“Thank God, I do not have to deal with such nonsense.”

In the 20th century, four men — Stjepan Radic, Tito, (writer Miroslav) Krleža and (President Franjo) Tuđman — were crucial, Milanovic said and added that “ruffians” in the Zagreb City Assembly decided to remove the name of Tito from the square that used to be named after him.

And I had suggested that they (Tito and Tuđman) should have their squares in Zagreb. That did not pass, and now I do not care any more, said the head of state.