ICTY PROSECUTOR COMMENTS ON COOPERATION WITH CROATIA

THE HAGUE, Jan 6 (Hina) - The cooperation between Croatia and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has not deteriorated despite the aggressive rhetoric started by President Tudjman's speculations about the alleged indictments against Croatian Army generals, ICTY Chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour said on Wednesday. The cooperation between Croatia and the ICTY Prosecutor's office has never been satisfactory, Arbour told a press conference in The Hague on Wednesday. Claims about the indictments against Croatian army generals are pure speculations which are not founded on information which the ICTY Prosecutor could forward to Zagreb, Arbour said declining to confirm whether such indictments existed and whether she was investigating anything concerning Croatian army generals. The general policy of the Prosecutor's office is to investigate and gather evidence about responsibility on the highest levels of political, military and paramilitary structures, she said. All governments, including Croatia, ought to support the mandate given to the ICTY by the United Nations, and be determined in prosecuting all those who committed war crimes under their jurisdiction, because the ICTY cannot try all persons who had committed war crimes since 1991. Croatia did not prevent ICTY representatives from carrying out an investigation in Krajina (the former Serb-occupied area), although the official stand of Croatian authorities was that the operation "Storm" had not been a military conflict. On the other hand, Yugoslav authorities are not allowing an investigation in Kosovo, claiming that the conflict there is not an "armed" one and is therefore not under ICTY's jurisdiction, Arbour said adding that the legal views of governments about the nature of a conflict were not important to the Prosecutor. As regards the case of a former member of the Bosnian presidency, Fikret Abdic, Arbour said she studied the evidence against Abdic, that had been sent by the Sarajevo authorities, and concluded that it was sufficient for initiating criminal proceedings. Standards that had been applied in Abdic's case are lower than those the ICTY Prosecutor has to apply before issuing an indictment, she added. Arbour said that for the time being she had no intention of issuing an indictment against Abdic, but she did not exclude the possibility of requesting Bosnia-Herzegovina to defer the case to the competence of the Hague Tribunal. (hina) rml