MARKOVIC: MY MINISTRY HAS LIMITED POSSIBILITIES FOR INDICTEES' TRANSFER

BELGRADE, Oct 3 (Hina) - Yugoslav Justice Minister Savo Markovic has said the possibilities of his ministry are "very restricted" pertaining to the implementation of the UN war crimes tribunal's (ICTY) request about the extradition of four high-ranking officers of the former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), accused of war atrocities in Dubrovnik.#L# Markovic was quoted on Wednesday by a Belgrade-based radio, B-92, as saying that Yugoslavia had not yet adopted an act regulating the cooperation between the Yugoslav federation and the ICTY. The Yugoslav official said his ministry could only forward the indictments to "a competent state body," but he did not say precisely to which body. Markovic added he "did not look at the names in the indictments served (by ICTY) to Belgrade." On Tuesday, ICTY Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte unsealed indictments against the four former Yugoslav army officers responsible for attacks on the southern Adriatic town of Dubrovnik, explaining that she decided to make the indictments public after Belgrade had failed to do anything about the arrest and hand-over of the indictees since last winter when it received the secret indictments. The indicted men - General Pavle Strugar, Vice Admiral Miodrag Jokic, Vice Admiral Milan Zec and Captain First Class Vladimir Kovacevic - are accused of the violation of the Geneva conventions and the customs and laws of war. Some of them are believed to be living in Montenegro, but Podgorica also asserts that it has no knowledge of their whereabouts. A Belgrade newspaper 'Blic' published a short interview with General Strugar, reporting that it found him in Podgorica. "I do not know anything, nor am I going to give any statement in relation to the indictments," the retired general Strugar told the Blic on the phone. (hina) ms