KARADZIC DID NOT PASS THROUGH BOSNIAN CROAT-CONTROLLED TERRITORY O

O $ N HIS ALLEGED TRIP TO ZAGREB ORASJE, May 8 (Hina) - The Orasje police on Wednesday denied news published by some Bosniac media saying that the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, for whose arrest the Hague Tribunal issued an international arrest warrant, had recently travelled through the Orasje area on his way to Zagreb. Orasje is part of a Croat canton in the Federation of Bosnia- Herzegovina, northern Bosnia, on the border to Croatia. 'Radovan Karadzic did not cross border crossings which are controlled by the Posavina canton border police, on his alleged trip to Zagreb', Orasje police representative Stjepan Mikic told reporters in Orasje today. If Karadzic had arrived in the area controlled by the Posavina Canton police, he would have been arrested, Mikic said. The aim of the newspaper headlines is to 'discredit the Croat people in Bosnia-Herzegovina', Mikic said. Some Bosniac newspapers on Tuesday published news according to which 'Karadzic met with Croatian President Franjo Tudjman'. The news was carried by some foreign news agencies and Slovene press. The news on the alleged meeting was strongly denied by President Tudjman's Office yesterday. The Croatian Embassy in Sarajevo yesterday issued a statement saying that 'this latest fabrication can be placed in the context of a whole series of negative headlines in some Sarajevo-based papers on Croatia's state policy and its highest officials'. The aim of such headlines is to create 'a public opinion about the impossibility of revivifying efforts aimed at building the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina'. Today's issue of the Zagreb-based daily 'Vjesnik' said that the attempt to discredit the Croat side (this time by publishing fabrications about President Tudjman), the Bosniac papers are trying to conceal the fact that a part of the Bosniac-Muslim politicians are obstructing the Washington and Dayton project on the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina. (hina) rm jn 081607 MET may 96