HIGH REPRESENTATIVE AND ICTY CHIEF PROSECUTOR ON TRIBUNAL'S WORK

SARAJEVO, Nov 1 (Hina) - None of war crimes suspects, indicted by the ICTY, will manage to escape the justice, said the international High Representative to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Wolfgang Petritsch, after his meeting with Carla del Ponte, the chief prosecutor of the International War Crimes Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Del Ponte arrived in Sarajevo on Monday for the first time after she assumed the task of the Hague Tribunal's chief prosecutor. The purpose of her visit to the Bosnian capital is to discuss, with international senior officials in that country, further activities of the Tribunal. The arrest of ICTY indictees is really proceeding slowly, just as many other things in this country, due to obstruction made by all parties, but trials will go on and none of war crimes suspects will manage to escape the justice, Petritsch said on Monday. He added that the continuation of the ICTY's work was of exceptional importance for the reconciliation process in Bosnia, as only trials of war criminals can remove the burden of the collective liability for crimes committed during the war. Petritsch and del Ponte shared the opinion that assistance which local authorities offered to the Hague Tribunal was insufficient and more efforts must be done in this field. Prosecutor del Ponte announced additional pressure on those who assumed the obligation, by signing the Dayton Accords, to extradite war crimes suspects in The Hague. Asked about the destiny of a notorious Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect, Radovan Karadzic, the High Representative said Karadzic would also have to face the trial as all other indictees. (hina) jn ms