ZAGREB, May 3 (Hina) - The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Carla del Ponte, will visit Vukovar on May 7 and tour all locations from the indictment against Slobodan Milosevic, a
senior government source said on Friday.
ZAGREB, May 3 (Hina) - The chief prosecutor of the International
Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Carla del Ponte,
will visit Vukovar on May 7 and tour all locations from the
indictment against Slobodan Milosevic, a senior government source
said on Friday. #L#
Del Ponte will visit Croatia on 6 and 7 May and hold courtesy
meetings with President Stjepan Mesic and Prime Minister Ivica
Racan, as well as the ambassadors of European Union countries in
Zagreb.
During the visit to Vukovar, del Ponte will meet some 15 witnesses
who survived Serbian crimes and members of an association of
missing and imprisoned persons from Sotin, as well as visit the
Vukovar hospital and Ovcara near Vukovar.
The visit to the eastern parts of Croatia will start in Erdut, where
war criminal Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan had a training camp, and end in
Ilok, where a local priest will describe to the ICTY prosecutor the
exodus of local Croats during the Serbian aggression.
Del Ponte should also visit Dalj, the Lovas farm, Borovo Selo,
Bogdanovci, Vukovar, Ovcara, Sotin and Tovarnik.
The government source believes the visit to Vukovar is the result of
one and a half years of patient work and building of trust between
the Hague prosecution and the Croatian government.
None of the witnesses who are to meet del Ponte are in the witness
protection programme, but it is possible that some of them will not
appear in public, the source said.
Croatian officials to attend official talks with del Ponte in
Vukovar are Deputy Prime Minister Goran Granic, Justice Minister
Ingrid Anticevic Marinovic, and the head of the government's Office
for Cooperation with the International Court of Justice, Orsat
Miljanic.
With regard to cooperation with the Hague tribunal, Croatia
proposes that domestic courts take over all cases which the Hague
tribunal has completed up to the issuing of the indictment, said the
source, adding that Croatia had demonstrated that it was capable of
conducting such trials.
The source neither confirmed nor denied claims that the Croatian
police were conducting investigations regarding some war crimes.
It dismissed speculation that the Hague tribunal would issue
indictments against five more Croatian citizens.
Asked about the trial of General Mirko Norac and the so-called
Gospic group, indicted for war crimes against civilians in Gospic
in 1991, the source said that it was not good to comment on trials
that were underway, but added that there had been some concern in
The Hague due to the initial stalling of the process by defence
attorneys. The trial is now progressing faster than it would in The
Hague, the source said, expressing hope there would be no
objections to the trial.
Croatia will cooperate with the Hague tribunal in the Milosevic
case as much as the tribunal requests, the source said.
The source is confident that the indictment against former Croatian
Serb rebel leader Milan Martic will be expanded.
(hina) rml