INVESTIGATION INTO WAR CRIME AGAINST CROAT CIVILIANS IN FINAL STAGE

SARAJEVO, Jan 4 (Hina) - The Sarajevo Canton public prosecutor told a Sarajevo daily paper an investigation into war crimes committed against Bosnian Croat civilians in Grabovica, southern Bosnia, in 1993 was in its final stage. It was however still possible the war crimes tribunal in The Hague might take over the case, public prosecutor Mustafa Bisic told "Dnevni Avaz" of Monday. Bisic said new evidence justified the prosecution's view that the Grabovica case be qualified as "confidential", adding silence was also demanded by the work rules of The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). An investigation into the Grabovica crimes, carried out by local authorities, had reached "the final stage", said Busic. It most probably would not be long before the public was notified about the case and the case transferred to judicial bodies, he added. Busic confirmed a special ICTY team was engaged in the "Grabovica case" alongside local investigators. The 1993 crime against Bosnian Croat civilians came into focus after Alija Izetbegovic, the Moslem member in Bosnia's collective Presidency, publicly called for the arrest and punishment of the culprits. Izetbegovic had said the case would otherwise be taken over by the ICTY. Izetbegovic had criticised the slowness of the investigators and the prosecution working on the case two weeks ago while addressing a session of leading Bosnian Moslem Party of Democratic Action's Main Committee. The "Grabovica case" was transferred to the Sarajevo Canton prosecution in February 1998 following an order of Bosnian Federation prosecutor Sulja Babic, even though the Sarajevo cantonal prosecutor does not have so called "local jurisdiction." In similar cases, investigations are usually carried out by investigators from the area where the crime was committed, which in this case are the authorities of the Bosnian (Croat-Moslem) Federation's Herzegovina-Neretva Canton. (hina) ha