THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, May 7 (Hina) - The UN war crimes tribunal's Chief Prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, will visit Sarajevo and Belgrade on 19 and 20 May, a spokeswoman for the prosecution of the International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia (ICTY) announced on Wednesday.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, May 7 (Hina) - The UN war crimes tribunal's Chief
Prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, will visit Sarajevo and Belgrade on 19
and 20 May, a spokeswoman for the prosecution of the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) announced on
Wednesday. #L#
During her working visit to Sarajevo and Belgrade, Del Ponte will
hold talks with officials of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia-
Montenegro on cooperation with the ICTY, the spokeswoman Florence
Hartmann said at a news conference.
She also announced that Del Ponte would fly to the United States on
Monday, 12 May, for a three-day visit. The ICTY chief prosecutor
will meet U.N. officials in New York and representatives of the U.S.
Administration in Washington.
A spokesman for the tribunal, Jim Landale, announced the
commencement of the trial of a former Bosnian Serb senior official,
Momcilo Krajisnik, for Monday, 12 May.
Krajisnik, who used to be a Serb member of the Bosnian collective
presidency and a speaker of the Bosnian Serb assembly, is charged
with genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the law
and customs of war.
Krajisnik was indicted, together with Biljana Plavsic, for the said
crimes. The ICTY issued their joint indictment on 21 March 2000.
Plavsic made a deal with the ICTY and pleaded guilty for counts on
crimes against humanity, while other counts were dropped from her
indictment. On 27 February this year, she was sentenced to 11 years
in prison.
Responding to answers by reporters about the Stanisic and Simatovic
case, Hartmann and Landale expressed expectations of Belgrade to
soon extradite Jovica Stanisic, a former head of the State Security
Service (SDB) of the Serbian interior ministry, and Franko
Simatovic Frenki, a former head of the SDB intelligence
department.
The two are accused of crimes against humanity and breaches of the
law and customs of war in Croatia and Bosnia from 1991 to 1995.
They were recently nabbed by local police during a clamp-down on
organised crime in Serbia, launched after the March 12
assassination of Serbian Premier Zoran Djindjic. Simatovic and
Stanisic are currently being kept in custody in Belgrade, awaiting
the completion of the legal procedure for their hand-over to the
tribunal at The Hague.
(hina) ms sb