SARAJEVO, April 1 (Hina) - The Hague war crimes tribunal chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte on Friday visited Sarajevo, without any announcement and in great secrecy. The visit, carefully guarded from the press, was reported only by
Sarajevo-based "Dnevni Avaz" with a picture, even though the daily could not give much detail on talks del Ponte held in Bosnia-Herzegovina's (BH) capital.
SARAJEVO, April 1 (Hina) - The Hague war crimes tribunal chief
prosecutor Carla del Ponte on Friday visited Sarajevo, without any
announcement and in great secrecy.
The visit, carefully guarded from the press, was reported only by
Sarajevo-based "Dnevni Avaz" with a picture, even though the daily
could not give much detail on talks del Ponte held in Bosnia-
Herzegovina's (BH) capital.#L#
It is known for a fact that the chief prosecutor of the
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
held talks with people at the office of the international
community's High Representative for BH, and that she stopped by at
ICTY's office in Sarajevo.
"Dnevni Avaz" speculates one of the topics of the del Ponte talks
was the questioning of former Republika Srpska Army members, which
ICTY representatives are conducting in Banja Luka, the
headquarters of Bosnia's Serb entity.
The United Nations Mission to BH has confirmed at least eight
Bosnian Serbs turned up to testify on events in Srebrenica in 1995,
when units under Ratko Mladic's command broke into the UN safety
zone, killing thousands of Bosnian Muslims.
Bosnian Serb judicial authorities claim all who testified were
protected during the hearings and given assurances they would not
be arrested within two days.
Del Ponte arrived in Sarajevo at a time when local media have
rekindled discussion on the Grabovica Case, also related to war
crimes investigations.
In September 1993, members of the Army of BH killed 32 Bosnian Croat
civilians in Grabovica, a southern Bosnian town, mainly elderly
persons and a three-year-old girl.
The joint commander of the Army of the Federation of BH, General
Rasim Delic, who was at the head of the Army of BH in the autumn of
1993, recently told Sarajevo-based "Oslobodjenje" daily he did not
consider him responsible, not even under command duty, for the
Grabovica crime. He personally had ordered an investigation into
the crime, the general told the daily.
Delic's statement elicited an immediate response from the war
commander of the Army of BH's Ninth Mountain Brigade, Ramiz Delalic
Celo, whose soldiers are suspected as possible perpetrators of the
Grabovica crime. Delalic said there had been no investigation based
on an order from Delic.
Delalic said the true culprits were being covered up while
political and military structures tried to accuse innocents. One of
the murderers of Bosnian Croat civilians is today "an inspector in
the Interior Ministry in Sarajevo," he asserted.
The "Dnevni Avaz" source, reported as "close to The Hague
tribunal", claims the Grabovica Case was not on the agenda of the
talks chief prosecutor del Ponte held in Sarajevo. The case is being
investigated by legal route, and the ICTY has had no objections to
BH's co-operation in connection with the Grabovica crime, the daily
states.
In Saturday's issue, "Oslobodjenje" adds new twists to the
Grabovica killings.
The Sarajevo Canton Interior Ministry forwarded to the daily a
statement saying Delalic had denied his allegation on a Ministry
inspector's involvement in war crimes.
Delalic responded by stating he had denied nothing. The police
summoned him for questioning, asking that he name the person he had
referred to, he said.
"I told them I stood by what I had stated, and that I would not
disclose the name because I was bound to silence by my co-operation
with The Hague tribunal," Delalic said.
He confirmed he received several anonymous telephone threats
following his statement to the press, including murder threats.
According to Delalic, most threats came in the wake of his
mentioning the name of Zulfikar Alispago, who at the time of the
Grabovica crime was operations commander of all Army of BH units
deployed in the Jablanica area, including the Ninth Mountain
Brigade.
"I have pointed out so earlier, and I am doing it now, that Alispago,
like Sefer Halilovic and Rasim Delic, is responsible on account of
his command position. I have neither said nor do I think that they
ordered the crime," Delalic said.
He said he was not afraid of the death threats, adding he would
continue co-operating with The Hague war crimes tribunal because he
wants the whole truth on Grabovica to be disclosed.
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