ZAGREB, March 17 (Hina) - Croatian Premier Ivica Racan said on Monday evening the governments of neighbouring countries should step up cooperation in the fight against organised crime as the Zagreb underworld was cooperating quite
well with Belgrade's underworld.
ZAGREB, March 17 (Hina) - Croatian Premier Ivica Racan said on
Monday evening the governments of neighbouring countries should
step up cooperation in the fight against organised crime as the
Zagreb underworld was cooperating quite well with Belgrade's
underworld. #L#
"The Zagreb trial of the criminal organisation showed that Zagreb's
underworld is cooperating very much with Belgrade's underworld and
it is time for the governments to step up cooperation in fighting
organised crime," Racan told a Zagreb radio station.
He added that his talks with officials in Belgrade (where he
attended the funeral of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic)
revolved around that issue.
The PM said the talks also addressed an upcoming visit of a Croatian
delegation to Belgrade, which he said would depend on the
development of the situation there.
Asked whether persons suspected of Djindjic's murder could be
hiding in Croatia, Racan said the government had no such
information.
The PM believes it is only logical that the Serbian police requested
assistance from neighbouring countries after Djindjic's
assassination and that routine check-ups in Croatia should not have
been treated as a sensation.
However, he did not dismiss the possibility that the assassin might
have hidden in Croatia, adding that all countries, including
Croatia, had problems with organised crime.
He also dismissed speculations that a possible lessening of
pressures on Serbia to cooperate with the U.N. war crimes tribunal
in The Hague would bring into question the extradition of war
criminals such as Bosnian Serbs Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic
as well as the so-called "Vukovar Three".
"In talks with European Union officials I have never heard anyone
bring into question the punishment of criminals of their kind," he
said.
Asked whether the international community would step up pressure on
Croatia, Racan said that the possibility of that happening was
always realistic, however, Croatia had to deal with crime and war
crimes not for the sake of the international community, but for its
own sake.
(hina) rml