SARAJEVO, March 29 (Hina) - The head the Bosnian Federation Army Joint Command, General Rasim Delic, said all available documents on crimes committed by BH Army members against Croats in the Sarajevo suburb of Grabovica in 1993 have
been handed over to the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague. "Officials with The Hague Tribunal had access to all archives on the Grabovica crime and they took everything that was of interest to them," Delic said in an interview with Wednesday issue of the Sarajevo daily 'Oslobodjenje'. He dismissed claims that Bosniak military structures had not done to investigate the crime. Delic explained that he had immediately ordered the then BH Army Chief-of-Staff, Sefer Halilovic, who at the time was in Herzegovina, to investigate what exactly had happened and inform him of it. Delic said that during a conflict with renegade BH Army units in Sarajevo in October 1993, persons s
SARAJEVO, March 29 (Hina) - The head the Bosnian Federation Army
Joint Command, General Rasim Delic, said all available documents on
crimes committed by BH Army members against Croats in the Sarajevo
suburb of Grabovica in 1993 have been handed over to the
international war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
"Officials with The Hague Tribunal had access to all archives on the
Grabovica crime and they took everything that was of interest to
them," Delic said in an interview with Wednesday issue of the
Sarajevo daily 'Oslobodjenje'. He dismissed claims that Bosniak
military structures had not done to investigate the crime.
Delic explained that he had immediately ordered the then BH Army
Chief-of-Staff, Sefer Halilovic, who at the time was in
Herzegovina, to investigate what exactly had happened and inform
him of it.
Delic said that during a conflict with renegade BH Army units in
Sarajevo in October 1993, persons suspected of committing the crime
in Grabovica had been arrested as well.
"The army also sent a proposal for issuing an indictment by which
our part of the job was completed. Why the case was not taken over by
the judicial bodies is not for the army to answer," he added.
The first man of the Federation army said the units whose members
had been involved in crimes were sent to the front in Herzegovina
from Sarajevo at the express request of Sefer Halilovic, who
commanded the operation which previously had been approved by the
army leadership.
The commander of the BH Army Sarajevo corps opposed this order,
asking that his units not be sent to Herzegovina, Delic said.
He added that he personally condemned any crime, but dismissed
claims that the BH Army was responsible for systematic and planned
crimes, stressing they were acts committed by individuals who
should answer for them.
Delic gave the interview to 'Oslobodjenje' after 'Slobodna Bosna'
weekly, commenting on the verdict in Tihomir Blaskic case, said
that, according to the same logic of superior responsibility, a
long-term prison sentence should also be imposed on the war-time
first man of the BH Army for the Grabovica crime.
Delic also sent protest letters to High Representative Wolfgang
Petritsch, the head of the OSCE Mission, Robert Barry, and SFOR
Commander General Ron Adams, asking to be protected from "unfounded
media attacks" or "be allowed to deal with them on his own."
(hina) rml