ZAGREB, Sept 20 (Hina) - From 1990 until the end of last year, a total of 1,522 persons were charged with war crimes, Croatian Justice Minister Stjepan Ivanisevic said at Thursday's government session during a discussion on activities
undertaken towards suspects of war crimes committed in war-stricken areas of Croatia. State Prosecutor Radovan Ortynski said the Prosecutor's Office will set no scales in the number of those charged. For us, everybody is equal notwithstanding their nationality, Ortynski asserted. He stressed that defendants will no longer be tried in absentia. Such cases will be suspended. Citing data, Minister Ivanisevic said that out of the total people charged, 691 people have been convicted, mostly in absentia, and 67 were found not guilty. The Amnesty Act was applied to 20,799 people charged with the criminal act of armed rebellion. Ortynski stressed that in proceedings against people o
ZAGREB, Sept 20 (Hina) - From 1990 until the end of last year, a
total of 1,522 persons were charged with war crimes, Croatian
Justice Minister Stjepan Ivanisevic said at Thursday's government
session during a discussion on activities undertaken towards
suspects of war crimes committed in war-stricken areas of Croatia.
State Prosecutor Radovan Ortynski said the Prosecutor's Office
will set no scales in the number of those charged. For us, everybody
is equal notwithstanding their nationality, Ortynski asserted.
He stressed that defendants will no longer be tried in absentia.
Such cases will be suspended.
Citing data, Minister Ivanisevic said that out of the total people
charged, 691 people have been convicted, mostly in absentia, and 67
were found not guilty. The Amnesty Act was applied to 20,799 people
charged with the criminal act of armed rebellion.
Ortynski stressed that in proceedings against people of Serb
nationality, especially in the region of eastern Slavonia, several
instructions were given to local prosecutors about what to do in
concrete cases. An example is the case with 127 indictees whose
number was reduced to 58 after revising the case.
Interior Minister Sime Lucin said so far 1,451 charges have been
levelled for war crimes (from genocide to the destruction of
cultural monuments), and several thousand people were brought to
police attention. About 1,400 people are being sought, and 213
international warrants have been issued for their arrest.
Ministers Lucin and Ivanisevic dismissed that politics was
involved in the justice system.
The problem of war crimes appeared before the government as part of
a discussion on problems of areas of special government care.
Vice-Premier Goran Granic warned that the process of restitution of
property has failed, so the government ordered the Defence Ministry
to conclude all activities concerning property restitution by the
end of 2002.
The revival of the economy is also unsatisfactory, so the
government decided to found a special agency for areas of special
government care which will coordinate economic development
activities in these areas.
Significant progress was made in solving the issue of missing and
imprisoned persons. In the first six months of this year 117 cases
were solved, whereas in the past years this number was 120 and 150.
However, Croatia is still searching for 1,450 missing people.
The government adopted a suggestion that the Office for Missing and
Imprisoned Persons take over the exhumation of all victims buried
in Croatia, notwithstanding their nationality.
(hina) lml sb