ZAGREB, April 9 (Hina) - An attorney representing a former Bosnian Croat war-time commander of HVO units in the Kiseljak area, Ivica Rajic, on Wednesday announced that the defence team would oppose Rajic's extradition to the
Hague-based UN war crimes tribunal which accused him of war crimes in the village of Stupni Do in 1993.
ZAGREB, April 9 (Hina) - An attorney representing a former Bosnian
Croat war-time commander of HVO units in the Kiseljak area, Ivica
Rajic, on Wednesday announced that the defence team would oppose
Rajic's extradition to the Hague-based UN war crimes tribunal which
accused him of war crimes in the village of Stupni Do in 1993. #L#
"We shall oppose the extradition asked by the Hague-based tribunal
and we shall insist on an explanation to be given by that tribunal
for its order, given that the documentation forwarded to our courts
contains no arguments for his hand-over," attorney Zeljko Olujic
told Hina today.
Olujic said that earlier in the day he had asked the Croatian Chief
State Prosecutor Mladen Bajic to launch proceedings against his
client in Croatia.
"The State Prosecution is obliged to process everybody who is
believed, on the basis of the founded suspicion, to have committed a
criminal act," Olujic said explaining that this move was taken by
the defence team in a bid to ensure that their client be tried in
Croatia rather than in The Hague by the ICTY.
For this purpose, Olujic on Tuesday asked the government's office
for cooperation with the ICTY to try to obtain the approval from
that UN court for the Rajic trial to be held in Croatia.
Rajic is indicted, on the basis of his responsibility as the
commander of the Croat Council of Defence's (HVO) operational group
in Kiseljak, for the slaying of at least 16 Bosniak (Muslim)
villagers in Stupni Do in October 1993.
(hina) ms sb
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