WAR CRIME SUSPECT COSIC CHOOSES TO DEFEND HIMSELF BY REMAINING SILENT

ZAGREB, May 12 (Hina) - Vlado Cosic, who was arrested in the central Adriatic city of Zadar on Tuesday on war crimes charges, stood mute before a Zagreb County Court investigating judge who interrogated him on Wednesday.#L# After the 20-minute interrogation Cosic was taken back to the Remetinec prison in Zagreb, investigating judge Zdenko Konjic said. He explained that a month-long detention had been set for Cosic back in 2000, when an investigation was launched into war crimes committed in Ahmici, and that it began on the day of the arrest. In this one-month period the State Prosecutor's Office has to decide whether to file an indictment against Cosic or ask for a further investigation. Cosic is one of four men suspected of the murder of 116 civilians and the destruction of a large number of civilian buildings in the central Bosnian village of Ahmici on 16 April 1993. They are also charged with document forgery. Croatian Interior Ministry spokesman Zlatko Mehun has said Cosic was hiding in Zadar under the assumed name of Ivan Vuleta. He had a passport issued in this name by the Zadar Police Department in July 1999. The investigation of the Ahmici case launched in 2000 included Tomislav Vlajic and Ante Sliskovic, who were arrested, while Pasko Ljubicic and Cosic escaped. All four had been living under false names. Ljubicic turned himself in to the police in November 2001 and was extradited to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, which indicted him for participation in attacks on Muslim villages in central Bosnia's Vitez and Busovaca municipalities between June 1992 and July 1993. At the time he was the commander of a Croatian Defence Council military police battalion. Cosic, of Busovaca, was the second in command. Ljubicic was also charged with war crimes against civilians in Ahmici, alongside Tihomir Blaskic and Dario Kordic. (Hina) ha