THOUSANDS CHARGED WITH COMMITTING WAR CRIMES IN CROATIA

ZAGREB, Nov 16 (Hina) - The head of the Croatian Interior Ministry Department for War Crimes and Terrorism, Ivan Gataric, today announced that thousands of people had been charged with committing hundreds of crimes during the war in Croatia. The announcement came at a Zagreb seminar on the role of police in democrtatic societies, convened by the Interior Ministry and the Council of Europe. Gataric said 4,230 people had been charged over their involvement in committing more than 814 crimes against humanity and international law; 652 had been charged for their part in 28 cases of genocide and 3,249 had been charged for their role in 686 crimes against the civilian population. He said the most heinous cases of massacres of the civilian population had already been processed. These included 43 civilians massacred at Skabrnja, northern Dalmatia; seven civilians slaughtered at Nadin, northern Dalmatia; 24 civilians killed at Cetekovci, western Slavonia; 40 civilians butchered at Saborsko in the Lika region; and the brutal maltreatment of POWs at Kusonje, western Slavonia, where 20 Croatian army POWs were killed after being tortured. Thirty-four civilians were registered missing. Assistant Interior Minister Josko Moric described the Croatian police force as being in a transitional phase. He added that Croatia had shown an ongoing tendency towards improvement in the security situation in the past three years. "However, this is not merely the result of police efforts but also general positive trends in society," Moric said. The representatives from the Council of Europe, Raphael Behr and Alfred Heyder, welcomed Moric's report. The seminar is continuing. (hina) mm sd vm 161550 MET nov 94