OVCARA MASSACRE FIRST CASE TO BE TACKLED BY SPECIAL PROSECUTOR

BELGRADE, July 24 (Hina) - The 1991 massacre of about 200 Croats at the Ovcara farm near the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar will be the first case to be tackled by Serbia's newly-appointed special war crimes prosecutor, Vladimir Vukcevic, the Belgrade-based Danas daily reported on Thursday. #L# The Ovcara case will be followed by an investigation into war crimes against ethnic Albanians from Kosovo who were buried in mass graves at Batajnica near Belgrade and Petrovo Selo near Kladovo, Vukcevic told the newspaper in an interview. His office will deal with anyone "for whom there are reasonable grounds for suspicion that they committed a crime, regardless of their position in the political, military or police hierarchy." The special prosecutor said that people in Serbia still had mixed feelings about what had happened during the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. "Some still believe that there were no crimes, only a patriotic struggle to achieve some national goals," he said, adding that efforts should be made to stress the importance of investigation and trial of war criminals. Four men suspected of direct involvement in the war crimes at Ovcara have been arrested as part of a police operation codenamed Sabre following the March 12 assassination of Serbian prime minister Zoran Djindjic, and are under investigation by the District Court in the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad. Two more suspects are still at large. (hina) vm