SARAJEVO, Jan 7 (Hina) - Crimes committed against Croat civilians +in the Herzegovina village of Grabovica in 1993 are acts of +individuals, not the result of an order or consent, commander of the +Joint Command of the Bosnian
Federation Army, General Rasim Delic, +told Sarajevo's daily "Dnevni avaz".+ "I do not believe that an order for something like that came from +even the lowest commanding level," Delic said, commenting on the +'Grabovica case' which made the news after the most recent requests +by the Bosniak member of the Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina, +Alija Izetbegovic, that the perpetrators of the crimes be uncovered +so the international criminal tribunal in The Hague would not have +to get involved.+ Asked directly, general Delic said he personally had not given any +statement regarding the case during investigative proceedings, +because he had not been asked to do so, although he had led the +B
SARAJEVO, Jan 7 (Hina) - Crimes committed against Croat civilians
in the Herzegovina village of Grabovica in 1993 are acts of
individuals, not the result of an order or consent, commander of the
Joint Command of the Bosnian Federation Army, General Rasim Delic,
told Sarajevo's daily "Dnevni avaz".
"I do not believe that an order for something like that came from
even the lowest commanding level," Delic said, commenting on the
'Grabovica case' which made the news after the most recent requests
by the Bosniak member of the Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Alija Izetbegovic, that the perpetrators of the crimes be uncovered
so the international criminal tribunal in The Hague would not have
to get involved.
Asked directly, general Delic said he personally had not given any
statement regarding the case during investigative proceedings,
because he had not been asked to do so, although he had led the
Bosnia-Herzegovina Army at the time of the crimes.
A group of senior officials of the Bosnian Army, led by the chief-
of-staff, General Sefer Halilovic, had been sent off to Herzegovina
in the autumn of 1993 in order to "harmonise the command system
among troops and lead combat activities which were under way or
planned", Delic said.
"This does not, by any means, mean that I hold General Halilovic
directly responsible for what happened in Grabovica. I am certain,
according to the information I have received, although I had not
been on the field, that neither him nor any other officer had
neither in writing nor words instructed or instigated crime... What
happened in Grabovica is the act of individuals, and they should be
brought to justice and tried," Delic said.
He suggested that the perpetrators of the crimes could be linked to
Bosnian Army troops that had at the time separated from the command
and leadership system.
Members of these troops, stationed in Sarajevo, had in the summer of
1993 been sent to Herzegovina, for reasons never fully explained.
Witnesses confirmed their stay in Grabovica at the time the crimes
were committed.
After returning to Sarajevo, commander of one of the troops, Musan
Topalovic, was liquidated in a showdown with the military and civil
police, while the commander of the other troop, Ramiz Delalic, was
apprehended during the same operation, only to be later released.
Results of an investigation launched at the end of October 1993 by
Bosnia-Herzegovina Army's security bodies about the crimes in
Herzegovina have never been released.
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.
(hina) lml