GOSPIC GROUP, AGAIN IN CUSTODY GOSPIC, Sept 13 (Hina) - The first hearing in an investigative process against Ivica Rozic was held at the Gospic County Court on Friday, and after being questioned, Rozic was taken into one-month-long
custody.
GOSPIC, Sept 13 (Hina) - The first hearing in an investigative
process against Ivica Rozic was held at the Gospic County Court on
Friday, and after being questioned, Rozic was taken into one-month-
long custody. #L#
This process is not related to the trial of the so-called Gospic
Group, in which Rozic is cited as the second indictee accused of war
crimes committed in 1991. On Wednesday evening, Rozic was released
from detention in Rijeka, after he spent two years, the longest
possible period under law, in the custody.
However, State Prosecution in Rijeka, presses charges against him
for having planted explosive devices in the houses of Serb
returnees in the Gospic region between 1996 and 1998 and the result
of which six persons died. This investigation has recently been
extended to a case when a woman in the village Ostrovica had been
killed in the explosion of an explosive device allegedly planted by
Rozic in September 1998.
Deputy State Prosecutor in Rijeka Doris Hrast said this process
against Rozic would be conducted by Gospic County Court,
independently from the trial of the Gospic Group, led by the Rijeka
County Court.
After this morning's hearing in Gospic, Rozic's lawyer, Mirko
Ruzic, said his client presented his defence pertaining to all 13
counts (in the new indictment), which he could not do in the past two
years when he was kept in custody in Rijeka.
He pleaded not guilty, the attorney said adding that no evidence had
been gathered during the past year, when the probe was conducted.
The lawyer said the court had extended the indictment on the basis
of a statement of one police officer and with no evidence, which is,
the lawyer says, incomprehensible.
(hina) ms