THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, March 11 (Hina) - The UN war crimes tribunal's Chief Prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, is not planning to visit Croatia this month but she will in coming months within her regular tours, a spokeswoman for the ICTY
prosecution said on Tuesday.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, March 11 (Hina) - The UN war crimes tribunal's
Chief Prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, is not planning to visit Croatia
this month but she will in coming months within her regular tours, a
spokeswoman for the ICTY prosecution said on Tuesday. #L#
Last week the Croatian government rebutted accusations of being
insufficiently co-operative with the International Criminal
Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and announced it was
going to invite Del Ponte to visit Zagreb. The ICTY Chief Prosecutor
previously told European Union diplomats that she was dissatisfied
with the lack of cooperation between Croatia and the tribunal.
"Her visit to Croatia is not scheduled for the next weeks, but she
will certainly come to Croatia in the next months within regular
tours, and definitely before this summer," spokeswoman Florence
Hartmann told Hina, adding that Del Ponte received a letter from the
Croatian government and would reply.
"In the meantime we hope that Croatia will try to respond to all the
pending requests," the spokeswoman added.
The Hague-based tribunal asks of Zagreb to produce some documents
stored in the defence ministry's archives in relation to the
Croatian army's operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and that it
arrest General Ante Gotovina, who has been on the run since an ICTY
indictment against him was unsealed.
The head of the government's council for cooperation with the ICTY,
Goran Granic, last week rejected all the accusations, describing
the complaints about non-cooperation as groundless and adding that
those were normal problems in such processes.
All summons of the tribunal must be executed in the shortest
possible time term and any procrastination presents a breach of
obligations, Hartmann explained.
Commenting on indications of more intensive activities by
competent services in Croatia with regard to bids to apprehend
General Gotovina, she said "it is important for Croatia to behave in
a responsible manner" and to take all necessary measures aimed at
(Gotovina's) apprehension.
The ICTY does not possess means for forcing anybody to comply with
their own obligations and the tribunal relies only on the
responsible conduct of every government, she added.
Asked about increased pressure from the ICTY on countries in south-
eastern Europe after the tribunal's recent success with the ruling
in the case of a Bosnian Serb leader, Biljana Plavsic, and the
detention of the Serb radicals' leader Vojislav Seselj in The
Hague, Hartmann justified it with the need of the tribunal as an ad
hoc court to complete its mandate.
"It is unacceptable and scandalous that we have had to wait almost
eight years for the arrest of (Bosnian Serb leaders) Karadzic and
Mladic or the Vukovar troika of whom only one (Mile Mrksic) is in
custody," Hartmann said.
She recalled that a Bosnian Croat, Ivica Rajic, accused of
atrocities committed in the Stupni Dol village, had been on the run
for more than seven years, and concluded that the majority of 22 who
were still on the run were "indicted in the last century."
(hina) ms sb