SITUATION IN INTELLIGENCE SERVICES WILL BE KNOWN ONCE TUDJMAN'S SAFE IS OPENED

ZAGREB, Feb 24 (Hina) - Heads of the Croatian intelligence community were not willing even after Thursday's meeting with the parliamentary Committee for Interior Policy and National Security to speak about the situation they encountered in the services recently taken over from the former authorities. "We have taken over a certain number of files in the HIS (Croatian Intelligence Service) but we will have the complete picture... once the safe-deposit box of the President (of the Republic) is opened," said the newly-appointed director of the Office for National Security (UNS), Tomislav Karamarko. Karamarko is confident that the President of the State would soon decide on opening the safe, however he told reporters there was no set deadline for making that decision. "Once it is made, we will be able to say whether anything is missing, and if it is, how," Karamarko said after the Committee's session, which was held behind closed doors. The session was attended by the new and former HIS directors, Ozren Zunec and Miroslav Tudjman respectively. Answering reporters' questions, Karamarko said it was still not known whether secret services had been tapping the phones of the heads of the Social Democratic Party-Croatian Social-Liberal Party (SDP/HSLS) bloc, Ivica Racan and Drazen Budisa, while they were part of the Opposition. Karamarko only said intelligence services would be depoliticised and professionalised. "No party or individual, regardless of his office, will be able to influence those services any longer," he said. HIS director Zunec described the Committee's session as "very important" considering that it was attended for the first time by the heads of intelligence services. "This is an excellent beginning and a guarantee of basic strategic work on regulating relations in this very important segment of the state administration," Zunec said. The Committee's chairwoman Djurdja Adlesic said the public could be peaceful in regard to the way the new parliamentary composition was controlling intelligence services. Asked whether there were indications that part of the documentation in intelligence services was missing, Adlesic said she did not want to talk about indications. She only confirmed that the new HIS director had informed the Committee about the situation he had encountered in the HIS and that the take-over procedure was underway. Questions by the press were prompted by claims published in some media that compromising documents had been removed from safe- deposit boxes in intelligence services. (hina) jn rml