CASSESE DEMANDS WAR CRIMES SUSPECTS BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE

FLORENCE, June 13 (Hina) - The president of the International War Crimes Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, Antonio Cassese, on Thursday called on the international community to make every effort to bring all war crimes suspects to justice before general elections in Bosnia-Herzegovina in September. Speaking at a ministerial conference in Florence, Cassese mentioned Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, Bosnian Croats Dario Kordic and Ivica Rajic, and former Croatian Serb leader Milan Martic. Cassese said those people should be arrested by either the NATO-led peace Implementation Force (IFOR) in Bosnia-Herzegovina or the authorities of Yugoslavia and Croatia. A third possibility was that the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Pale and Mostar to force them to apprehend and hand over their leaders to the tribunal in The Hague. He said that Bosnia-Herzegovina fulfilled most of its commitments from the Dayton peace agreements towards the tribunal. Croatia had passed a constitutional law on cooperation with the tribunal, allowed the tribunal's prosecutor to investigate on its territory, persuaded indicted General Blaskic to surrender to the tribunal and arrested a suspect, Zlatko Aleksovski, in Split on June 8, he said. However, Cassese criticized Croatia for failing to use its powers and influence on Bosnian Croats to arrest and extradite war crimes suspects among them and for failing to process war crimes allegedly committed by Croatian forces in a liberation operation. Much less readiness for cooperation could be found in Yugoslavia where General Mladic walked around Belgrade unpunished, Cassese said, adding that the situation was worst in the Serb entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina where international demands were received with utter disdain. (hina) vm jn 132343 MET jun 96