THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, April 4 (Hina) - The Croatian government has notified the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) about the indictment against retired general Janko Bobetko having been delivered to his
attorney, ICTY spokesman Jim Landale confirmed on Friday.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, April 4 (Hina) - The Croatian government has
notified the International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia (ICTY) about the indictment against retired general
Janko Bobetko having been delivered to his attorney, ICTY spokesman
Jim Landale confirmed on Friday. #L#
Landale told Hina the government's notification would be forwarded
through the tribunal's Registry to the competent judge.
On March 19 judge Carmel Agius issued an order requesting the
Croatian authorities to hand the indictment against Bobetko to the
defendant or his attorneys in exchange for the tribunal suspending
its order for Bobetko's arrest and transfer.
Asked whether the tribunal believed that the Croatian authorities
had fulfilled their obligation by delivering the indictment,
Landale only repeated that the tribunal had been notified that the
indictment had been delivered.
He would not comment on some ambiguities regarding the delivery of
the indictment to attorney Bosiljko Misetic, including his denying
having received the indictment and the government's subsequent
claims that the delivery was regular.
The Zagreb County Court, which acted upon orders by judge Agius, on
Friday stated it could not serve Bobetko with the indictment due to
his "poor and deteriorating" condition and the fact that due to the
impossibility of delivering the indictment there were no legal
grounds for handing it to his attorneys either.
The government's office for cooperation with the tribunal stated
later that the indictment had been delivered to Misetic.
Misetic then denied having received the indictment, but the
government stated the delivery had been performed in a regular
manner and its obligation to the ICTY had thus been fulfilled.
"After the county court established lack of legal grounds for
delivering the indictment to the defence, the question whether the
attorney received the indictment or not is irrelevant," a Croatian
legal expert who asked to be unnamed told Hina.
The war-time Croatian army chief-of-staff, Bobetko has been
accused, based on command and personal responsibility, of war
crimes committed in the 1993 Medak Pocket operation.
(hina) rml sb