SERBIAN RADICAL PARTY OFFICIAL SAYS MESIC FUNDING USTASHA NEWSPAPER

BELGRADE, Feb 3(Hina) - The district public prosecutor's office in Serbia's Novi Sad will ask for audio and video recordings of a news conference at which a senior Serbian Radical Party (SRS) official said the Novi Sad-based Gradjanski list was an Ustasha newspaper whose owner and editor-in-chief was Croatian President Stjepan Mesic.#L# Acting district public prosecutor Stanko Vujic told reporters on Tuesday he would decide whether to take measures and interview SRS official Milorad Mircic after examining the integral transcript of the news conference. Mircic labelled Gradjanski list an "Ustasha" newspaper and accused the Croatian head of state of "directly funding a newspaper which employs all the scum in journalism". This statement was spurred by an interview SRS vice president Tomislav Nikolic gave Gradjanski list in which he allegedly said Vojvodina's autonomy should be abolished. The head of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights Novi Sad office, Pavel Domonji, said Mircic's statement came at a time when anti-Croat incidents in the north of Serbia were multiplying. He added that the windows of the Franciscan monastery in Novi Sad were smashed on Sunday night. Equating the Ustasha WWII movement and Croathood fosters animosity against Croats, Domonji said. He, like numerous representatives of Vojvodina authorities and associations of journalists of Serbia, has slammed the latest incident. (Hina) ha