B'NAI B'RITH: WITNESSES FROM BELGRADE SHOULD COME AT SAKIC TRIAL

WASHINGTON, April 10 (Hina) - The world's largest Jewish human rights, philanthropic and community action organisation, B'nai B'rith International, on Friday released a statement in Washington expressing hope that Yugoslav authorities would enable witnesses from that country to leave for Zagreb in order to testify at the current trial of Dinko Sakic, a former commander of the World War II concentration camp in Jasenovac. "There is a bitter irony in the prospect" that the current NATO endeavours to stop Serbian ethnic cleansing in Kosovo may impede the trial of a perpetrator of war crimes in the Second World War, said Tommy Baer, a former president of this Jewish organisation, who is monitoring the Sakic trial in Zagreb, at an invitation of Croatian President Franjo Tudjman. "History's warning against inaction in the face of mass murder and forced expulsions led the United States and its NATO allies to strike Yugoslavia (Serbia/Montenegro)," the current president of B'nai B'rith, Richard Heideman added. Leaders of the Jewish organisation called on both Serbian and Croatian authorities to enable the unimpeded continuation of testimonies in the trial against Dinko Sakic. The statement of B'nai B'rith read that "judging from what some of the Croatian witnesses have been saying - and not saying - in the opening stages of the trial, we frankly have serious doubts as to whether the full truth of this case and of the tragic Ustashe period will be heard and considered." "That makes the presence of the four witnesses from Belgrade vital," Baer added. (hina) ms