CRO HELSINKI COMMITTEE RESPONDS TO MINISTER SEPAROVIC'S INTERVIEW TO VJESNIK

ZAGREB, July 15 (Hina) - The Croatian Helsinki Committee (HHO) on Thursday forwarded a letter to Croatian Premier Zlatko Matesa warning him of "increasingly frequent false accusations and harangues of Justice Minister Zvonimir Separovic against the HHO." The Committee pointed to the latest unfounded attack of Minister Separovic in his interview to the Vjesnik daily of 12 July under the headline "Separovic:HHO and its followers write indictments against Croatian Generals!". The Committee has always advocated that perpetrators who committed crimes should be tried in their countries. Those who have sabotaged such civilisation obligation, have brought national sovereignty into question and forced international community to establish the Hague Tribunal, read the Committee's letter. The Committee recalled that this May it had released a Report on some of crimes committed during the 1995 liberation operation "Storm" and in the wake of it, adding that Minister Separovic and Interior Minister Ivan Penic criticised the report but did not refute facts. On 1 June 1999, the Committee sent a request to Minister Separovic to hand down data about instigated criminal proceedings against perpetrators of 410 acts of killing, which the HHO supported by documentary evidence, but so far no response has been given. By his conduct and frequent outbursts in media, Minister Separovic demeans one of most responsible institutions of the social and state system, causing immeasurable damage to the Croatian judiciary and particularly to the international standing of Croatia, read the letter signed by the HHO President Vjekoslav Vidovic. (hina) jn ms