THREE INHABITANTS O SODOLOVCI FACE A TRIAL

( Editorial: --> 9574 ) OSIJEK, September 10 (Hina)- The main panel of judges at the Osijek county court commenced on Thursday the retrial of Pero Klickovic (1953), Vujo Halavanja (1953) and Zeljko Keskenovic (1951), all inhabitants of the village of Sodolovci. The panel, presided by Judge Ante Budic, will try the accused in absentia for a crime against humanity that they allegedly perpetrated by shooting from Sodolovci at the nearby Croat villages between July 1991 and 5 May 1992. The accused were charged with causing the death of ten persons, wounding 24 others and creating serious material damage. The accused said they did not fell guilty on any of the charges. Pero Klickovic, Vujo Halavanja, and Zeljko Keskenovic, 41, were members of a 19-member Sodolovci Group, so called after their home village in eastern Slavonia. All 19 were tried in absentia in 1995 and given long-term prison sentences by the Osijek County Court for war crimes against civilians in the Croatian Danubian region in 1992. So far the three defendants have been reiterating in front of the panel that they had only kept guard and dug the trenches and that they had never participated in combat. After the panel heard the accused inhabitants of Sodolovci, deputy county state attorney Elizabeta Ambrus motioned the panel to call Goran Vusurovic, who has also been charged as a member of the Sodolovci group, to appear at the next hearings. Vusurovic is presently in the court's custody. After today's hearing the press was told that on Tuesday Marinko Stankovic, another member of the Sodolovci group, turned himself in at the investigative prison of the Osijek county court. On Monday the court will announce whether it will retry Stankovic or not, Judge Ante Budic said. (Hina) mr 102033 MET sep 98