ZAGREB, Jan 5 (Hina) - The Croatian government most resolutely denies receiving any list of persons suspected by the prosecutor's office of UN's war crimes tribunal in The Hague, the government's Media and Public Relations Service
said in a statement on Friday. According to media reports, Hrvoje Sarinic, once an official with the formerly ruling Croatian Democratic Union party, said he had received reliable information to the effect that the government had received a letter from The Hague mentioning some 100 former state officials in whom the tribunal's prosecutor's office was interested in some way. The statement said it was entirely untrue that the government had received any letter or note from the tribunal's prosecutor's office the content of which could in any way be connected to Sarinic's claims, i.e. contain the names of former state officials, analyse where they had been or what they had done, an
ZAGREB, Jan 5 (Hina) - The Croatian government most resolutely
denies receiving any list of persons suspected by the prosecutor's
office of UN's war crimes tribunal in The Hague, the government's
Media and Public Relations Service said in a statement on Friday.
According to media reports, Hrvoje Sarinic, once an official with
the formerly ruling Croatian Democratic Union party, said he had
received reliable information to the effect that the government had
received a letter from The Hague mentioning some 100 former state
officials in whom the tribunal's prosecutor's office was
interested in some way.
The statement said it was entirely untrue that the government had
received any letter or note from the tribunal's prosecutor's office
the content of which could in any way be connected to Sarinic's
claims, i.e. contain the names of former state officials, analyse
where they had been or what they had done, and which would mention
the Medak Pocket, Flash, and Storm - 1995's operations which
liberated Croatian territories occupied by Serb rebels at the
time.
Such speculations with indictments and statements in which some
people are accusing each other are evidently aimed at creating an
atmosphere of fear in which everybody would suspect and accuse
everybody, said the statement.
It all plays in the hands of those advocating the criminalisation of
last decade's Homeland Defence War, rifts and insecurity among the
Croatian population, the statement added.
The government stands firmly behind its stances on cooperation with
the tribunal's prosecutor's office, adopted on Dec. 7, and will
resume with full cooperation in an effort to achieve the common
goal, the just prosecution of those accountable for all war crimes,
with the full respect of every international legal standard, the
statement concluded.
(hina) ha