ZAGREB, Dec 11 (Hina) - Croatian Government's stances on relations with cooperation with the prosecutor's office of the Hague-based international war crimes tribunal (ICTY), adopted on Thursday, were issued to reporters
Monday.
ZAGREB, Dec 11 (Hina) - Croatian Government's stances on relations
with cooperation with the prosecutor's office of the Hague-based
international war crimes tribunal (ICTY), adopted on Thursday,
were issued to reporters Monday. #L#
In the document the Government underlined its wish to fully
cooperate with the ICTY and its belief that all war crimes,
notwithstanding the nationality of the perpetrator, would be
processed and individual culprits punished.
The Government said it would exert efforts to, through cooperating
with the ICTY, show the true image of war events, the logic of events
and committed war crimes in Croatia.
The Government is adamant its justice system is capable of
processing all crimes, including war crimes, and holds the ICTY
ought not to equalise quilt and amnesty the aggressor.
The Croatian Government requested of the ICTY prosecution to, in
its investigative work, fully adopt the criteria of individual
guilt, the chronology and gravity of crimes, to process war crimes
under the principles of truth and justice, avoiding any political
influence in making decisions.
The prosecution should be led by the criterion of the gravity of
crime, the responsibility of the perpetrator, notwithstanding the
position of the perpetrator in the formal authority structure, and
give up its stance that it would persecute only those in leading
positions.
The prosecution should have equal treatment of the victim and
perpetrators and not divide its investigative teams according to
national affiliation of the perpetrator. It should also do more to
process crimes committed by the former Yugoslav People's Army and
Serb paramilitary troops in Croatia in the period from 1991 to 1995,
taking into consideration existing evidence about the crimes, the
Government said.
It also asked the prosecution to investigate concrete crimes, not
generally within the frameworks of the legitimate Croatian Armed
Forces operations which had been carried out with the aim of
liberating the internationally recognised territory of the
Republic of Croatia, as well as to cooperate with Croatia's justice
organs in processing war crimes before Croatian courts.
The Government also asked for specifications in requests forwarded
to the Croatian Government, such as the name of the investigated
person, the crime, circumstances, relevancy of documents requested
and that documents requested of the Government be exactly
specified.
The prosecution should carry out contacts with state officials,
both former and public, exclusively through the Government, and
should respect the calling of potential witnesses to respect their
duty to maintaining state, military and official secrecy. The legal
procedure for relieving these persons from preserving secrets
should be followed.
The tribunal's statute and Croatia's legal order will be respected
during investigative actions in Croatia, the conclusions say.
The Government asserted the prosecution should refrain from using
double standards in estimating the cooperation of certain states.
The Government has announced it would review the possibility of
motioning amendments to the ICTY statute with the aim of defining
the prosecution's jurisdiction, using the model of the permanent
international criminal court, as defined in the Rome Statute.
The Government will also consider forwarding an amendment to the
Constitutional Law on Cooperation with the ICTY into parliamentary
procedure, aimed at establishing a more effective cooperation
between the ICTY and Croatia.
(hina) lml