SERBIAN PREMIER ANNOUNCES CHANGES TO COOPERATION WITH ICTY LAW

BELGRADE, Feb 17 (Hina) - During talks with the chief prosecutor of the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague (ICTY), Carla Del Ponte, senior officials in Belgrade expressed readiness for better cooperation with the tribunal. Serbia Premier Zoran Djindjic announced changes to the law on cooperation with the ICTY, since the tribunal voiced some concerns regarding the law. #L# A statement by the Serbian government, issued after talks between Del Ponte and Djindjic, says the premier expressed readiness of authorities in Belgrade to "improve cooperation with the tribunal to remove obstacles for the speedy joining of Serbia and Montenegro into the European community." Del Ponte "has voiced dissatisfaction with the authorities' cooperation," said the statement. The statement says that Del Ponte pointed out "the fact that the chief indictees have not yet been extradited to the Hague tribunal and insufficient access to archives" as the biggest factors of a lack of cooperation. Djindjic reiterated that the tribunal could not expect to see all the documents, since many archives had been destroyed during the NATO strikes on Yugoslavia in 1999. The authorities in Belgrade are cooperating in line with possibilities and available means. The change to the existing law on cooperation with the ICTY will contribute to a better cooperation, the premier said. The Yugoslav Foreign Minister and chairman of the national council for cooperation with the tribunal, Goran Svilanovic, confirmed that there were no legal obstacles for witnesses, who had been exempt from keeping state and military secrets, to testify in trials before the tribunal. The talks also focused on "the adoption of guarantees for indictees to defend themselves in freedom which Serbian and Montenegrin state bodies had provided to those who had turned themselves in to the tribunal, which would be a significant incentive to future indictees to turn themselves in to the tribunal." (hina) lml sb