SARAJEVO SARAJEVO, Oct 29 (Hina) - The establishment and functioning of a special war crimes department within the Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina in the next five years requires 28 million euros, and the U.S. Administration is willing to
secure a third of the necessary funds, U.S. ambassador in charge of war crimes Pierre Richard Prosper said in Sarajevo on Wednesday.
SARAJEVO, Oct 29 (Hina) - The establishment and functioning of a
special war crimes department within the Court of Bosnia-
Herzegovina in the next five years requires 28 million euros, and
the U.S. Administration is willing to secure a third of the
necessary funds, U.S. ambassador in charge of war crimes Pierre
Richard Prosper said in Sarajevo on Wednesday. #L#
The US diplomat stopped in Sarajevo en route to The Hague where he is
to attend a donors' conference on Thursday whose aim is to raise
funds to make it possible for some trials of suspects indicted by
the Hague war crimes tribunal to be conducted by Bosnia-
Herzegovina's judiciary.
The United States believes that the establishment of the war crimes
department within the Court of Bosnia-Herzegovina is an important
project which should be carried out as soon as possible, Prosper
told reporters after a meeting with the international community's
High Representative to Bosnia, Paddy Ashdown.
The entire exit strategy of the ICTY depends on this project, as the
tribunal is intending to transfer some cases to Sarajevo as soon as
this department is established, Prosper said.
Ashdown said that it was important for the entire international
community to see that Bosnia was capable of trying war crimes
suspects, as this would testify to Bosnia being a country in the
every sense of that word.
The British diplomat and the U.S. official reiterated that it was
important that Bosnia, especially its Serb entity, were fully co-
operating with the tribunal in The Hague.
Commenting on the tribunal's indictment against four police and
army generals of Serbia-Montenegro, accused of war crimes in
Kosovo, and Belgrade's request to try them in the country rather
than in The Hague, Prosper said that the arrest and hand-over of
Bosnian Serb war-time leader, General Ratko Mladic, could
thoroughly change the current situation and create conditions for
the possibility of letting Serbia-Montenegro organise war crimes
trials.
ICTY representatives, including Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte,
have so far dismissed the possibility of the four generals being
tried in Serbia.
(hina) ms