JUDGE SAYS CHARGES AGAINST HIM PRESSED BY POLITICAL DICTATE

SPLIT, Oct 4 (Hina) - Judge Slavko Lozina said on Friday he had expected the municipal state prosecutor's office in Sibenik would request the State Judicial Council that he be stripped of immunity so that charges might be pressed against him for a hit-and-run accident. #L# The Split County Court judge said today "this whole matter of the traffic accident is being led by political dictate." Lozona said proceedings would prove that he did not directly take part in a collision in Split last April, when Split resident Giovanni de Micheli Vitturi was hurt, and that it was completely untrue that he ran away from the scene. "But, that will all be proved," Lozina told Hina. Lozina is known to the wider public as the judge presiding the trial of eight men accused of war crimes committed at Split's Lora prison in 1992. Some non-governmental organisations have voiced on several occasions their discontent at Lozina's conduct and presiding of the trial. Justice Minister Ingrid Anticevic-Marinovic and Supreme Court president Ivica Crnic recently requested Split County Court president Igor Benzon to voice his opinion regarding Lozina's failure to file documents relating to the Lora trial and his inappropriate behaviour at a recent concert by pop singer Marko Perkovic Thompson. (hina) ha sb