ICTY CHIEF PROSECUTOR HOLDS TALKS WITH PRIME MINISTER RACAN

ZAGREB, April 5 (Hina) - Carla del Ponte, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), on Wednesday held talks with a Croatian Government delegation, which was headed by Prime Minister Ivica Racan. The talks confirmed that Croatia would participate in the prosecution of perpetrators, it was said at the Government building in Zagreb after the meeting. #L# Following the talks and a working lunch, which together lasted more than two hours, del Ponte said she was assured that local authorities would prosecute perpetrators. She reminded that, although the ICTY Prosecution was conducting investigations in all directions, it could not prosecute all cases. "The talks that we had today will, I am sure, help in bringing individual criminals before justice in Croatia or The Hague, instead of nations and states," Racan said. He confirmed that Croatia accepted and respected international obligations it had taken over, including those toward The Hague, and that it wanted to demonstrate also by processing crimes that it was "a law-based state more than before." Cooperation with the ICTY is in Croatia's national interest, Racan added. This is the second visit of the ICTY Chief Prosecutor to Croatia. Del Ponte said today's talks also tackled the Blaskic case and that the Croatian officials informed her that new documents on that case had been found. The documents will be forwarded to the Appeals Chamber because one has to establish the truth and Blaskic's sentence must be adequate, she said. Blaskic, former commander of the Central Bosnia Operative Zone, was sentenced to 45 years in prison in March this year for crimes committed in central Bosnia in 1993. (hina) rml