RADOS CONFIRMS ANDABAK'S ARREST, MESIC BROADER OPERATION

ZAGREB, Sept 12 (Hina) - Croatia's Defence Minister Jozo Rados on Tuesday evening confirmed that a close aide to Mladen Naletilic Tuta, General Ivan Andabak, was in the hands of the Croatian civil police. During the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ivan Andabak, who is currently a general of the Croatian Army, used to be a close associate of Mladen Naletilic alias Tuta, an ICTY indictee awaiting trial before the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for atrocities he allegedly committed in the area of Mostar (southern Bosnia-Herzegovina). "I only know that Andabak has been apprehended in relation to the Hague Tribunal's request and not because of the Levar case. I know nothing more about the matter," Minister Rados said answering reporters' questions about the alleged arrests of several persons within investigations which both the ICTY and competent Croatian authorities have launched against them. "I cannot confirm how many people have been (arrested), and considering Oreskovic ...I have heard of it," Rados told reporters, at a reception which Croatian President Stjepan Mesic gave on the occasion of the Zagreb two-day conference of the parliamentary heads of countries covered by the Stability Pact for South-eastern Europe. The Croatian Army's General Tihomir Oreskovic was apprehended, according to unofficial information as well, within a probe in the murder of an ICTY witness, Milan Levar. President Stjepan Mesic told reporters at the reception party that police were conducting an operation at several levels in connection with the Hague Tribunal's indictments, the assassination of Milan Levar and the so-called Ahmici group. Asked by reporters if he could confirm whether the arrested persons were a former secretary of the Gospic war crisis centre, Tihomir Oreskovic, a senior official of the war-time (Bosnian Croat) Herzeg-Bosnia, Ignjac Kostroman, Generals Ivan Andabak and Mirko Norac and persons who helped the Ahmici group to remain in hiding such as officials of Croatia's intelligence services Ivan Brzovic and Markica Rebic, President Mesic replied: There are some persons you have mentioned among the arrested." He added Pasko Ljubicic, one of those suspected of having committing war crime in central Bosnian village of Ahmici, was still on the run, but the Croatian President voiced hope that Ljubicic would realise that it was better for him to surrender. Croatia's First Deputy Premier Goran Granic, who was also asked about the possible apprehension of Gen. Andabak or Gen. Oreskovic and about police operations in the central Croatian town of Gospic where Levar was killed, said "activities of the Interior Ministry are under way." The name of Ivan Andabak was cited by the Croatian media last year when Naletilic Tuta was in the Zagreb prison hospital and when Andabak was allegedly planning to carry out with 50 former members of the Convicts' Battalion Naletilic's abduction from the infirmary. Croatian Television reported about the apprehension of Oreskovic during the flagship news programme "Dnevnik". Officials sources have not yet confirmed the information. In the course of the day the Croatian media informed about the intensified activities of police forces in Gospic. In recent days there were speculations about the responsibility of persons who helped Ante Sliskovic and Tomislav Vlajic to live under false identity. Sliskovic and Vlajic, accused of having been involved in the killing of one hundred Moslems in Ahmici during the 1993 Moslem-Croat conflict, were arrested a few days ago in the Croatian coastal town of Zadar. (hina) jn ms