ZAGREB, March 31 (Hina) - On Wednesday morning the Croatian government received four new indictments from the Hague-based UN war crimes tribunal against former Bosnian Croat political and military officials, the accused and their
lawyers confirmed to reporters outside the Justice Ministry in Zagreb.
ZAGREB, March 31 (Hina) - On Wednesday morning the Croatian government
received four new indictments from the Hague-based UN war crimes
tribunal against former Bosnian Croat political and military
officials, the accused and their lawyers confirmed to reporters
outside the Justice Ministry in Zagreb.#L#
The indictments were issued against two former Croatian Defence
Council (HVO) commanders, Generals Slobodan Praljak and Milivoj
Petkovic, the former defence minister of the self-styled Croatian
Republic of Herceg-Bosna, Bruno Stojic, and the former head of
Herceg-Bosna's government, Jadranko Prlic.
General Petkovic, now inspector-general in the armed forces of
Croatia, said he would report to the Hague tribunal on Monday and that
everyone would be able to judge the indictment once it was made
public.
"My military career has ended today," Petkovic told reporters as he
left the Justice Ministry building in the company of his lawyer, Vesna
Alaburic.
General Praljak confirmed he had received the indictment, but stressed
that he could not talk about it until it was made public, which he
said was expected to happen this afternoon.
"I have signed a statement of my own free will saying that I will go
to The Hague, and I am leaving on Monday," Praljak said, adding that
his legal representative would be Kresimir Krsnik.
Lawyer Zeljko Olujic confirmed that his client, Bruno Stojic, was
among the indicted and that he would respond to the tribunal's
summons. "He does not feel guilty, and we think we will manage to
prove that he is innocent and that the sole purpose of all this is to
satisfy somebody's political appetite," Olujic said.
Prlic was also at the Justice Ministry, but reporters failed to get a
statement from him. Deputy Prime Minister Andrija Hebrang and Interior
Minister Marijan Mlinaric, who were also at the meeting, also declined
comment.
The charges against the four former officials of Herceg-Bosna, who
also have Croatian citizenship, will remain unknown until the
indictments are unsealed.
There has been speculation in the media over the past few days that
they are charged with ethnic cleansing of Croat-controlled Hercegovina
for the purpose of annexing the region to Croatia, as well as with
setting up camps where Bosnian Muslims were tortured. The four are
also reportedly accused of persecution of Muslim civilians from Stolac
and Ljubuski, war crimes in Stupni Do and Ahmici, the destruction of
Mostar's Old Bridge and the devastation of religious buildings.
There has also been speculation that in the indictments the tribunal's
prosecutors treat the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina as an international
conflict and accuse Croatia of direct involvement in the conflict with
the aim of dividing Bosnia-Herzegovina and annexing a part of it.
(Hina) vm sb