BELGRADE, Feb 22 (Hina) - Serbian police tried to arrest Veselin Sljivancanin, a lieutenant of the former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), said a member of the committee for the defence of this war crimes suspect, on Saturday.
BELGRADE, Feb 22 (Hina) - Serbian police tried to arrest Veselin
Sljivancanin, a lieutenant of the former Yugoslav People's Army
(JNA), said a member of the committee for the defence of this war
crimes suspect, on Saturday. #L#
Sljivancanin is a member of the notorious Vukovar Troika, accused
by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
(ICTY) of atrocities committed in the eastern Croatian town of
Vukovar in autumn 1991.
A local daily in Belgrade on Saturday quoted "a source close to the
Tribunal's indictee Sljivancanin" as saying that on Wednesday
evening the police sought Sljivancanin at the address registered as
his formal abode, but they did not find him there.
The committee for Sljivancanin's defence has forwarded an open
letter to Serbian Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic asserting
that 90 percent of citizens of Serbia are Slivancanin's harbourers
and that he can be nabbed only by "people who do not speak the
Serbian language and who are not Serbian police officers."
Extolling him, the committee threatened to cause unrest in Serbia
if this ICTY's indictee was arrested.
A few days ago Minister Mihajlovic announced that some persons
wanted by the ICTY would be arrested and pointed to Sljivancanin in
this context. He added that according to information available to
the country's authorities, the other high-profile ICTY indictee,
Ratko Mladic, who was the Bosnian Serb war-time commander, was not
residing in Serbia.
(hina) ms