SIBENIK: ONE OF TWO ARRESTED FOR WAR CRIMES RELEASED

SIBENIK, Sept 6 (Hina) - One of two former conscripts of the Croatian Army's 113th Brigade arrested in Bibinje on Wednesday was released today as it was established there is no founded suspicion that he committed a war crime, it was officially confirmed in the central Adriatic town of Sibenik on Thursday. The 25-year-old N.L. "was arrested more as a witness than potential culprit," Zdravko Sedlar, head of the Sibenik-Knin County police, told reporters. He added some statements charged N.L. as the culprit but Wednesday's investigation proved he did not commit the crime. The other suspect, 25-year-old M.S., was arrested last night and charged with war crimes against civilians, it was officially confirmed today. M.S. is charged with the mid-August 1995 machine-gun killing of two elderly women in Nadoveze, a hamlet in the central Adriatic hinterland, and another elderly woman in the hamlet of Ponosi. At the time he was a member of the 113th Brigade's reconnaissance unit. Reporters wanted to know if there had been pressure on the State Prosecutor's Office in the past not to prosecute war crimes committed in Sibenik-Knin County. "There was no pressure, but perhaps there didn't have to be any, as it was impossible to obtain certain data," said Zeljko Zganjer, the county state prosecutor. He could not say exactly how many cases of suspicious deaths, or war crimes committed during 1995's Operation Storm in Sibenik-Knin County, were currently being processed. Zganjer said the State Prosecutor's Office would today submit a request for an investigation of four war crimes suspects arrested on Tuesday and suggest the investigating judge keep them in detention. (hina) ha sb