BELGRADE, June 20 (Hina) - The former chief of the Serbian Interior Ministry's State Security Service, Jovica Stanisic, said for the latest issue of Belgrade's NIN weekly he would not testify before the International Criminal Tribunal
for the former Yugoslavia, but added he would surrender to the tribunal if an indictment was issued against him, to prove his innocence.
BELGRADE, June 20 (Hina) - The former chief of the Serbian Interior
Ministry's State Security Service, Jovica Stanisic, said for the
latest issue of Belgrade's NIN weekly he would not testify before
the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, but
added he would surrender to the tribunal if an indictment was issued
against him, to prove his innocence. #L#
Stanisic, who was the chief of the service between 1991 and 1998,
said that information recently published by some media that he had
reported to the ICTY on his own initiative offering the tribunal
cooperation, was a "set-up".
Such headlines were published late last week after ICTY
investigators tried to search Stanisic's house looking for an
important document. Investigators were searching for a secret
decision of the then President Slobodan Milosevic, dated 1997,
which put the Serbian Interior Ministry's State Security Service
directly under Milosevic's control.
Stanisic forwarded the document to the Serbian Interior Ministry's
Archives a day before the search. The Yugoslav government on
Thursday removed the mark "top secret" from Milosevic's secret
decision. The document will be forwarded to the ICTY.
Jovica Stanisic is also mentioned in the indictment against
Slobodan Milosevic, however, it is not as yet clear whether he will
appear before the Hague-based tribunal as a witness for the
prosecution in the Milosevic trial or as an indictee.
(hina) it sb