HDZ MOVES AMENDMENTS TO LAW ON COOPERATION WITH ICTY

ZAGREB, Aug 30 (Hina)- The Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party bench on Friday forwarded to the parliament draft amendments to the Constitutional Law on Cooperation between the Republic of Croatia and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, bench president Vladimir Seks told a press conference . #L# According to the amendments, the government should in the future, upon receiving extradition demands, first have to determine whether this was in accordance with the Croatian Constitution, while a panel of judges of the relevant county court would need to verify facts of the indictment. The HDZ also proposes that Croatian citizens who are extradited should not receive sentences more than 20 years in prison (as foreseen by the Croatian Penal Code at the time when the crime was committed), that it would not be possible to try the extradited person for any other crime and that they not be extradited to any third country. If the parliament adopts the proposed amendments, Croatia would have this issue regulated in the same manner as the USA, France and Italy, Seks said, announcing that the proposed amendments would receive the necessary support from MPs. Seks noted that the reason for the proposed amendments was because the Hague's Prosecution in its charges and sentences had far surpassed any framework determined by the UN Security Council resolution that founded the Statute of the tribunal itself, and the HDZ felt it was its duty to move the amendments because the government had not done so itself. Seks claimed that the government had allowed the extradition of Generals Ante Gotovina and Rahim Ademi despite the fact that the Hague's Prosecution overstepped its jurisdiction and charged the two generals under the guise of command responsibility, as well as the accusations that Croatia had systematically planned its military liberation operation "Storm" as an operation of ethnic cleansing, Seks said. (hina) sp lml sb