EXTRADITION PROCESS OF NALETILIC IS LEGAL NOT POLITICAL ISSUE - KRSNIK

ZAGREB, Oct 13 (Hina) - "Croatia will not and cannot receive sanctions because of my defendant," defence lawyer for Mladen Naletilic Tuta, Kresimir Krsnik, said Wednesday after the Supreme Court decided to postpone deliberation about Naletilic's appeal about his extradition to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for two days. Proceedings against Naletilic are being carried out under the law and procedures approved by the international community, Krsnik said. The international community, therefore, he added, has no right to interfere with the legal proceedings. Krsnik stressed Naletilic's case was a legal, not political problem. According to him, the legal problem occurred because the Law on Criminal Procedures and the Constitutional Law on Cooperation with the ICTY were not harmonised. Croatian legislature does not envisage the possibility of interrupting a trial, and the trial against Naletilic which is underway before the Zagreb County Court is not completed yet, Krsnik said. This is the reason Naletilic cannot be transferred, he added. this is the argument on which he based Naletilic's appeal against a decision on his extradition. The Supreme Court has postponed deliberation about the appeal until October 15. Until this date the panel of state attorney deputies must decide about Krsnik's request that the state attorney be exempted. Krsnik requested the exemption of the state attorney and one of his deputies because they had not filed an appeal against the decision on Naletilic's extradition, as they had done in the case of Vinko Martinovic Stela who has been indicted by the same indictment as Naletilic by the ICTY. In Martinovic's case, the State Attorney's Office advocated "the stance that the request for extradition cannot be fulfilled until the trial against him has been completed, that is, until a verdict with no right to appeal is reached in his home country". The lack of an appeal with the same reason in Naletilic's case "causes room for doubt in the impartiality of the state attorney," Krsnik said. He held that the State Attorney's Office had, thus, placed Naletilic in an unequal position, violating the constitutional principle of equality of every person before a court of law. "The Supreme Court is setting a precedent which will be used for every future case, and considering the fact that Naletilic was the first to refuse to be extradited to the international tribunal, a precedent is being set," Krsnik said. Krsnik said that pursuant to the Supreme Court's decision an appeal could be filed at the Constitutional Court which, according to him, should solve some dilemmas about the non-harmonisation of laws. He warned that due to laws not being harmonised, Naletilic could be extradited by decision of the Constitutional Court. "Do you think the international community would then let my client return to Zagreb?", Krsnik asked. He said the last resort he would go to to defend his client was the European human rights court. "We will see what wise people will say about this case," Krsnik said. In December 1998, the ICTY issued an indictment against Naletilic charging him with crimes against humanity committed in Bosnia- Herzegovina between April 1993 and January 1994 during his command of the so-called convicts' brigade. Naletilic is also charged with grave violations of the Geneva Conventions and the violation of the law or customs of war. On December 21, the Hague Tribunal sent the Croatian Government an arrest warrant and an extradition request for Naletilic. (hina) lml jn