A court in Croatia has adjourned the trial of two journalists accused of defaming President Franjo Tudjman. The journalists - the editor of a satirical weekly newspaper, Feral Tribune, and one of its writers - were acquitted of the charges last year, but the state prosecutor sent the case back to court. Now the judge says the court needs evidence from abroad in order to reach a verdict. As Jacky Rowland reports, this could delay the trial almost indefinitely.

The editor of the Feral Tribune, Viktor Ivancic, and his colleague, Marinko Culic, are being tried under a law that protects five top state officials. In the offending article, they ridiculed an idea of President Franjo Tudjman to rebury Croatian fascists from the Second World War alongside their victims.

The article compared President Tudjman to the former Spanish dictator, Francisco Franco, and was illustrated with the newspaper's trademark photomontages. The two journalists have already been acquitted of defamation, but the state prosecutor appealed against the verdict last year and sent the case back to court.

The session on Monday lasted just two hours. The judge agreed to adjourn the trial while the defence sent to Spain for evidence from an expert witness.

The adjournment could be a convenient way of delaying almost indefinitely a trial that's widely seen as unfair to the defendants - and which promised to be embarrassing to the authorities. There has been broad international condemnation of the case - one of a number of recent trials in Croatia involving journalists or human rights workers.