INDICTED FORMER JNA OFFICER SAYS HIS DUTIES WERE HONOURABLE

BELGRADE, Dec 17 (Hina) - A former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) senior officer indicted by The Hague tribunal for war crimes against civilians in Croatia told Belgrade's daily on Thursday that he had "performed his officer's duty with honour" and added that he had "nothing to be ashamed or afraid of". Veselin Sljivancanin, along with two other officers of the former JNA have been indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for organising the killing of 260 patients (civilians and soldiers) of the hospital in the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar in 1991. "I was and still am prepared to give my life for my country and people," Sljivancanin told the Belgrade daily "Glas javnosti" ahead of his hearing before the Yugoslav Military Court in Belgrade, scheduled for Thursday. The three officers of the former JNA, Veselin Sljivancanin, Mile Mrksic, and Miroslav Radic are witnesses in the investigation against "unidentified perpetrators" of the Vukovar massacre. The ICTY officially requested the Yugoslav Military Court to defer the proceedings instituted against the three officers, after ICTY Prosecutor Louise Arbour said that the aim of the Yugoslav court was to protect the three officers from the international criminal responsibility. In his interview, Sljivancanin stressed he "recognised only his country, his court, and the court of his people", and added that for him no foreign court "existed". (hina) it