DECISION ON ARREST OF WAR CRIMINALS DEPENDS ON IFOR COMMANDERS ON GROUND

GROUND SARAJEVO, Feb 29 (Hina) - The decision on whether a military action would be undertaken to arrest persons suspected of having committed war crimes depended on estimation by IFOR commanders on the ground. In the case of Banja Luka, the commander of IFOR troops who were there had estimated that Radovan Karadzic could not be arrested, so that such an action had not been undertaken, IFOR spokesman in Sarajevo Marc Rayner told a press conference, commenting on the fact that the Bosnian Serb leader, suspected of war crimes, had shown up in Banja Luka two days ago during a meeting of the Bosnian Premier Hasan Muratovic, the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina's Premier Izudin Kapetanovic and the Premier of the Bosnian Serb entity, Dragan Kasagic. The meeting was organised at the request of Carl Bildt. The building, in which the meeting took place, was secured by the British IFOR soldiers. A large number of soldiers had been engaged only to protect Premiers Muratovic and Kapetanovic, officials in Bildt's office said. IFOR soldiers were not in the position to chase war criminals, spokesman Rayner said. The chief commander of the Implementation Force in Bosnia- Herzegovina, Admiral Leighton Smith, yesterday said for Bosnian television that it had not been possible to arrest Karadzic because the risk of a conflict with his bodyguards had been too high. The building in which the meeting took place was located in a densely- populated city area and there was a danger of high number of casualties, he added. (hina) rm (hina) rm 291606 MET feb 96