SIX FORMER SOLDIERS ACQUITTED OF WAR CRIMES FOR SECOND TIME

SIBENIK, Feb 13 (Hina) - After consulting with the State Prosecutor's Office, the Sibenik county state prosecutor's office on Wednesday decided to drop charges against six former Croatian soldiers who were suspected of having killed 16 Croatian Serbs near Sibenik in 1995. The charges were dropped after a repeated investigation and reconstruction of the crime established the suspects were not on the site of the crime when it occurred and that the victims were not killed with the weapons which were taken from the suspects, said Zeljko Zganjer, the county state prosecutor. The statements the suspects gave during their first interrogation upon arrest were withdrawn and changed in the main hearing, said Zganjer. Those statements never represented an explicit, unambiguous and full admission to the crimes and were dismissed as inauthentic and unreliable during the second trial, he added. Witnesses pointed to other perpetrators and an entirely different way in which the crimes were committed, or corroborated the alibis of the defendants, he explained. The lack of any other facts and evidence which would reasonably and convincingly point to the criminal responsibility of the six men led to the dropping of the indictment, said Zganjer. Given the gravity of the crime, the State Prosecutor's Office decided to resume the investigation in cooperation with the police and the military police, he added. Zganjer said the dropping of the indictment did not mean the case was closed as the police had information as to who the perpetrators of the heinous crime might be. The six former Croatian soldiers were thus acquitted of the killing of civilians in the villages of Varivode, Gosici, and Donji Borci for the second time. They were first put on trial in 1996 before the Zadar County Court. The acquittal was quashed by the Supreme Court, which requested a retrial. The second trial began in January 2001 before the Sibenik County Court. (hina) ha sb