I know there is one particular case and several other cases causing worries in Croatia. However, these cases are before the British courts and we have a strong tradition not to comment on ongoing proceedings, Hoon said in response to questions from the press on whether his country would extradite war crimes convicts in compliance with the international law.
After meeting with Croatia's Foreign Affairs and European Integration Minister Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic, Hoon said that the legal proceedings should be completed and that he knew that the Croatian government was going to appeal against a recent ruling by a court in London not to allow Spanovic's transfer to Croatia.
The 44-year-old Spanovic, a Croatian Serb who has been convicted in absentia in Croatia of war crimes, was allowed to stay in Great Britain despite the fact that Croatia sought his extradition. Judge Timothy Workman told a court in London last week that it was so long since the alleged offences took place, there were doubts about whether Spanovic would receive a fair retrial if extradited. "I find that it would now be both unjust and oppressive to extradite the defendant to Croatia," Workman said.
Spanovic was accused of torturing and killing civilians, pillage and arson in 1991, at the outset of the Serb rebellion against Croatia's independence. He was tried in absentia by a court in Sisak and sentenced to 20 years in jail for war crimes. The Croatian Justice Ministry, which had issued an international arrest warrant for Spanovic, has promised to allow him a retrial if he demands it.
Spanovic entered Britain in 1998 and was granted leave in 2000 to stay in the country. The prosecution told the court that Croatia would appeal against the ruling.
Asked to comment on a recent suggestion by a British member of the European Parliament that upon Croatia's admission to the European Union, a combination of the Serbo-Croat language should be used for the sake of saving, Hoon said that there was a strong tradition in the European parliament that each MEP had the right to speak in their native languages and that there were translators for those languages.