ZAGREB, June 26 (Hina) - An attorney for retired General Luka Dzanko said on Thursday he had not requested the government's office for cooperation with the U.N. war crimes tribunal and the defence ministry to make available documents
necessary to prepare his client for an interview with the tribunal's investigators.
ZAGREB, June 26 (Hina) - An attorney for retired General Luka Dzanko
said on Thursday he had not requested the government's office for
cooperation with the U.N. war crimes tribunal and the defence
ministry to make available documents necessary to prepare his
client for an interview with the tribunal's investigators. #L#
Retired General Dzanko has had the status of a suspect since mid-
June, and he will talk with investigators of the International
Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) about events on the
southern front, where he was a Croatian Army commander, attorney
Nenad Boban said.
Defence Minister Zeljka Antunovic today stated the ministry was
ready to make available to Dzanko all documents necessary to
prepare for the interview.
Boban says he will contact the defence ministry and request help
only once it has been established which operations on the southern
front ICTY investigators want to talk about.
Boban is confident that the status of his client will change into
that of a witness already after the first interview.
Boban said Dzanko did not want to talk with reporters and had
withdrawn into his family house on the island of Lastovo.
Apart from the southern front, where he was a commander in 1991 and
1992, Dzanko also participated in Operation "Maslenica".
During Operation "Flash" he commanded the military district of
Bjelovar and it was his units that liberated Okucani. During
Operation "Storm" he commanded the operation direction Hrvatska
Kostajnica in Sector North.
He was sent into retirement in line with a decision by late Croatian
President Franjo Tudjman in 1996.
Four years later he publicly distanced himself from the twelve
generals whom President Stjepan Mesic sent into retirement for
issuing an open letter in which they demanded that an end be put to
"the criminalisation of the Homeland War".
The media described him as a critic of crime in army ranks and the
excessively fast promotion of some high-ranking officers.
(hina) rml sb