LIPIK, Sept 10 (Hina) - Croatian President Stjepan Mesic said on Tuesday he had not yet been subpoenaed to testify before the UN war crimes tribunal at The Hague in the trial against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. He
added, however, that the subpoena had been announced.
LIPIK, Sept 10 (Hina) - Croatian President Stjepan Mesic said on
Tuesday he had not yet been subpoenaed to testify before the UN war
crimes tribunal at The Hague in the trial against former Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic. He added, however, that the subpoena
had been announced. #L#
Answering reporters' questions about his testimony, Mesic said in
Lipik that he would speak about the time when he was a member and
chairman of ex-Yugoslavia's federal presidency, and Milosevic's
intention to create an ethnically pure Greater Serbia at the
territorial expense of the former federation's other republics.
The part of the Milosevic trial referring to crimes committed in
Kosovo wraps up on Wednesday. On Sept. 26, the Hague tribunal's
investigators should start presenting evidence for crimes
committed in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Prosecutors have announced that witness B-1230 will describe how
the Serb bloc in ex-Yugoslavia's presidency prevented Mesic from
taking over the office of presidency chairman on 15 May 1991. The
witness will also speak about how once Mesic assumed the office,
then Defence Minister Veljko Kadijevic and other senior military
commanders ignored his commands.
For the for Croatia and Bosnia part of the Milosevic trial,
prosecutors have not named any witness, giving them numbers
instead.
Witness B-1230, which evidently refers to Mesic, will describe how
Mesic's work was obstructed, among else by preventing his safe
arrival to Belgrade to attend the federal presidency's sessions.
The witness will describe how the rump presidency usurped the
authority of the entire federal presidency, how then deputy
presidency chairman Branko Kostic usurped Mesic's authority while
the military (JNA) refused to carry out Mesic's orders despite his
having been lawfully appointed federal presidency chairman.
According to the prosecution, Mesic should describe how Milosevic
used the Serb bloc to control the federal presidency, attempts to
extort from the presidency a state of emergency proclamation in the
country in March 1991, and the subsequent use of the JNA in the
aggression on Croatia.
Milosevic is charged with war crimes in Croatia and genocide in
Bosnia.
(hina) ha