WITNESS TO ASSAULT ON MOSTAR RESIDENT GIVES REPORT

MOSTAR, Sept 27 (Hina) - After a Bosnian Croat had been seriously injured in a beating in Mostar on Friday evening, a witness to the incident gave a report. Vidak Kozul, who was severely beaten Friday, was a resident of west (Croat-held) Mostar, but had visited the east part of town, which is Moslem-held, with Zarko Klemo. A person unknown to me hit Klemo on the head four to five times with his hands, after which Kozul fell and hit his heat on the asphalt, Klemo said, adding that all this had happened in front of a restaurant in the eastern part of town. They had parked the car with Herzeg-Bosnian license plates in which they arrived near-by. The goal of the visit was for the two men to retrieve their employment books from the "Velmos" company, whose employees they had been before the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. After he beat up Kozul, the assailant went back to the restaurant, Klemo said. According to Klemo, he and Kozul had went into the restaurant at the invitation of their former colleague, the owner of the restaurant. Several SFOR officers arrived at the scene not long after the beating, but, Klemo said, they offered no help to the severely injured Kozul. Klemo then placed Kozul in the car and transported him to a hospital in west Mostar. He added that he had informed the west Mostar police about the attack, as well as international police officials at the Canton Interior Ministry in the neighbourhood of Cernica. (hina) lm 271903 MET sep 97