ZAGREB, June 12 (Hina) - The Croatian government on Thursday sent into urgent parliamentary procedure a bill on the application of the Statute of the permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) and prosecution of crimes against the
international law of war and humanitarian law.
ZAGREB, June 12 (Hina) - The Croatian government on Thursday sent
into urgent parliamentary procedure a bill on the application of
the Statute of the permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) and
prosecution of crimes against the international law of war and
humanitarian law. #L#
The adoption of the bill is one of conditions for the investigation
and prosecution of war crimes to be transferred to Croatia's
judiciary, which has developed to the extent which makes it
realistic for the International Criminal Tribunal for former
Yugoslavia (ICTY) to let it process some cases, Justice Minister
Ingrid Anticevic Marinovic said.
The bill regulates cooperation between Croatia and the ICC, and
partly with the temporary ICTY.
The government says that there is a realistic possibility for the
ICTY to transfer a number of cases to the national courts of those
countries for which the international community establishes that
they have legal and real conditions for organising just and fast war
crimes trials.
Under the bill, four county courts - in Rijeka, Osijek, Split and
Zagreb - would be in charge of such trials, but the bill does not
exclude the right of other courts to conduct such trials.
The State Prosecution is given extensive powers, including the
appointment of a deputy state prosecutor as state prosecutor in
charge of war crimes, to co-ordinate police work in the discovery of
war crimes and their perpetrators. The interior ministry would have
a separate department dealing with war crimes. Under the bill, a war
crimes case would not be processed by the ICC if it is already being
dealt with by a domestic court.
According to justice ministry data from 1991 to the end of 2002,
criminal charges for war crimes were pressed against 4,625 persons,
of whom 1,648 were indicted. The courts delivered 872 verdicts, 849
cases were in the process of investigation and indictments were
issued in 543 cases pending verdict. A total of 1,392 cases were
unsolved.
(hina) rml sb