DALMATIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE TO MEET FORMER LORA PRISONERS

SPLIT, Nov 13 (Hina) - The Dalmatian human rights committee will meet possible witnesses, former prisoners in the Lora military penitentiary in Split, by late November in Belgrade, the president of the committee, Tonci Majic, said Tuesday. According to Majic, several dozen of former Lora's prisoners, who now live in Serbia, The Republika Srpska and Montenegro, will attend the meeting. This non-governmental organisation has been carefully observing events in the Lora penitentiary. The committee has gathered documentation and testimonies on war crimes committed in Lora. Majic said Yugoslavian, namely Serbian judicial bodies did not want an investigation into the Lora case in order to avoid an investigation into events which took place in Serbian military penitentiaries over the last ten years. Serbian judicial bodies had not as yet forwarded official statements with the names of witnesses of the events in Lora in 1992 and after to the Split County Court investigating centre, even though a year had passed since the statements have been requested. Majic told Hina the committee got in touch with numerous former prisoners who were willing to testify about their experiences in Lora. According to official Croatian military documents, 1,005 prisoners, mostly Serbs, had been detained in the Lora penitentiary. "We have been keeping the documentation on Lora for years, until favourable conditions for the processing of the documents were created, as it is the case now ", Majic said. An investigation into the war crimes in Lora was started at the Split County Court on September 29, 2001. Seven suspects were arrested and they are now in detention, while an arrest warrant has been issued after the eighth suspect. As former police officers, the eight persons are suspected of the murder of Nenad Knezevic, Gojko Bulovic and several other Lora prisoners of Serb nationality. (hina) np sb