SPECIAL GROUP OF CRIME EXPERTS WORKING ON AHMICI CASE - SPOKESMAN

ZAGREB, Oct 10 (Hina) - A spokesman for the Croatian Interior Ministry confirmed on Tuesday that a special group of crime experts within the Ministry's jurisdiction were gathering information on the Ahmici case. The crime experts have so far questioned a former head of the military intelligence service (SIS) and President Tudjman's advisor on security, Markica Rebic; a former head of another intelligence service, HIS, Tomislav Druzak; and general Ljubo Cesic-Rojs. A former HIS director, Miroslav Tudjman, was to be questioned yesterday as well but he was not handed the official summons because he is on a visit to Canada. Bosnian Croat forces killed more than 100 Muslim civilians in the central Bosnian village of Ahmici in 1993. The international war crimes tribunal in The Hague (ICTY) sentenced the then commander of the Croat Defence Council (HVO), Tihomir Blaskic, to 45 years in prison on the ground of commanding responsibility but the perpetrators were not caught. Blaskic's attorneys, who based their defence on the claim that there had been a parallel commanding system which Blaskic had no knowledge of, failed to prove their claim. Following the change of authority in Croatia, documents which reportedly shed more light on the case were discovered and Croatian bodies continued the investigation. They recently discovered that four perpetrators had been hiding in Croatia under false identities. Two of them were arrested and two managed to escape. The perpetrators had reportedly been granted new identities, accommodation and residence permits in Croatia by Croatian secret services, headed at the time by the persons the police are now questioning. (hina) rml