CROATIAN FIRST DEPUTY PM: ICTY ASKS 12 POLICE OFFICIALS' ADDRESSES

ZAGREB, Jan 27 (Hina) - Croatia's First Deputy Prime Minister Goran Granic has said the UN war crimes court's chief prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, asked addresses of 12 Croatian police staffers, some of whom are no longer active. "The Government will not be able to meet some requests as they are not sufficiently precise," Granic said in his interview to Saturday's issue of the "Vecernji List" daily. Another daily "Slobodna Dalmacija" last Thursday published that following an instruction from the Government, which asked this because of the Tribunal (ICTY) request, "the Interior Ministry has asked police administrations throughout Croatia to forward a list of about hundred persons who will be interviewed by the ICTY Prosecution either as informers, witnesses or suspects." "This (that the police are searching for a hundred people at the Tribunal's request) is not true, and press articles show there are intentions to continue with the campaign of sowing fear," Granic told 'Vecernji'. He added that the Prosecution of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) could independently contact private persons, and that the Prosecution's Office asked the Government to give addresses in cases referring to persons employed in state services, army and police. "If the request is made in accordance to the agreed procedure we meet the request, and if the Prosecution would like to interview those persons, it must address us and cite topics about which it wants to talk," the Government's senior official said adding that after that the Croatian competent body (Council) must make a decision on exempting persons in concern from the obligation to keep state secrets and if an interview is convened it will held in the presence of authorities persons. "So, it is not about one hundred but 12 persons, and at the present we do not know whether the ICTY wants to talk with them or not, as only their addresses have been requested," Granic reiterated. Granic said in this interview that in his opinion all who had taken transcripts from the Office of the late President Franjo Tudjman must hand over the documents to the State Archive. While holding the term of office as the President of the Republic, President Tudjman was not a private person. Everything related to the job of the President of the Republic is belongs to the nation. Therefore I maintain that all who have taken the documentation for various reasons should produce those papers to the State Archive, Granic explained. According to data released by the Office of the incumbent President, some documents have been stolen, whereas the Tudjman family believes that the documentation should belong to that family, as it maintains that it is private property. As regards the ICTY's requests to get some transcripts, Granic reiterated his stand that it was in Croatia's interest to investigate concrete war crimes. If it is established that there are links between some war crime and a transcript, I believe the Government will decide to forward the document to The Hague, he added. Granic declined to comment on a statement given by President Stjepan Mesic's Office that it could not deliver all documents dating from the Tudjman rule, as some of them the incumbent President needed. "I regard that everybody should take decisions from his/her own scope of responsibility and is accountable for them," Granic said. (hina) ms