HAGUE TRIBUNAL CONTINUES TO URGE EXTRADITION OF NALETILIC

ZAGREB, Oct 13 (Hina) - The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) continues to expect that Mladen Naletilic Tuta, indicted late last year for war crimes committed in Bosnia-Herzegovina, will be urgently extradited to the Tribunal. The ICTY continues to expect that Naletilic will be sent to The Hague as soon as possible, ICTY spokesman Jim Landale told Hina over the telephone on Wednesday, when asked to comment on a postponed session of the Croatian Supreme Court. The Supreme Court Council today postponed until 15 October a discussion on Naletilic's appeal to the ruling of the County Court in Zagreb which granted The Hague Tribunal's request for his extradition. The session, unattended by the accused, was postponed at his defence attorney Kresimir Krsnik's request that state attorney Berislav Zivkovic and his deputy Slavko Zadnik be exempted from the process on suspicion in their impartiality. Landale reminded Croatia was not fulfilling its commitments to the ICTY as long as Naletilic remained in the country, as, he added, had been said by ICTY president Gabrielle Kirk McDonald in a letter to the United Nations Security Council of 27 September. Naletilic's attorney Krsnik objected to the fact that the State Attorney's Office had not appealed the Zagreb County Court decision of 1 September to grant ICTY's request for Naletilic's extradition, as it had done in the case against Vinko Martinovic Stela, who is on the same ICTY indictment as Naletilic. (hina) ha