RETRIAL OF SZUP MEMBERS WHO BEAT MAN TO DEATH STARTS IN E.CROATIA

SLAVONSKI BROD, Sept 23 (Hina) - The retrial of SZUP members, Zlatko Plazibat and Miroslav Tarnaj, who beat Sefik Mujkic to death on suspicion that he had been engaged in espionage, began in a municipal court in Slavonski Brod, eastern Croatia, on September 23. An indictment alleges that these members of two SZUP (Croatia's Service for the Protection of the Constitutional Order), on September 15, 1995 beat Mujkic to death at the Slavonski Brod police station where he was brought after being arrested on the basis of documents seized in Okucani and on suspicion that he had been engaged in military espionage for the Serb side. After the municipal state attorney, Stjepan Haramustek, read out the indictment, defendants Zlatko Plazibat and Miroslav Tarnaj as well as witnesses were questioned. According to Anto Nobilo, the attorney of the Mujkic family, the first trial of Plazibat and Tarnaj was held in 1996 in the county court in Pozega, where these two men were sentenced to five and a half years in prison. They appealed the verdict before the Supreme Court which revoked the ruling of Pozega court after a few months and thus Plazibat and Tarnaj were set free. The retrial was initiated by the Hague-based War Crimes Tribunal's prosecutors who have claimed that this crime was committed on the sidelines of the military and police liberating operation "Storm". Present at the trial in Slavonski Brod were representative of the OSCE, the Croatian Law Centre and reporters, at a request from Amnesty International. The trial resumes on Friday. (hina) ms