ZAGREB, March 11 (Hina) - Shortly after 0830 hours on Thursday, indicted Croatian army generals Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac left Zagreb aboard a regular Croatia Airlines flight for Amsterdam, from where they will be taken by Dutch
police to the UN war crimes tribunal's detention centre in the Scheveningen district of The Hague.
ZAGREB, March 11 (Hina) - Shortly after 0830 hours on Thursday,
indicted Croatian army generals Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac left
Zagreb aboard a regular Croatia Airlines flight for Amsterdam, from
where they will be taken by Dutch police to the UN war crimes
tribunal's detention centre in the Scheveningen district of The
Hague.#L#
The two generals, who have been indicted by the Hague tribunal with
crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war,
were seen off at Zagreb airport by several hundred people, including
their families and members of special army forces in civilian
clothing. Singing the national anthem, the special forces sent the
generals off with a military salute.
Markac and Cermak said they were leaving for The Hague with pride.
"I hope we will win a victory in The Hague and that we will be back
soon and that Croatia will again be proud of its defenders," Markac
said.
Expressing his bitterness at the indictment, Cermak said that it was
"precisely because of this kind of indictment" that the United States
was refusing to sign up to the International Criminal Court.
"The time has come for Croatia to make a clean break with its past,"
Cermak said.
The two generals were accompanied by their defence attorneys Cedo
Prodanovic, Miroslav Separovic and Goran Mikulicic, and the Assistant
Justice Minister in charge of cooperation with the tribunal, Jaksa
Muljacic.
The defence attorneys said on Wednesday that none of the members of
their clients' families would be travelling to The Hague today.
According to the tribunal's procedure, the generals will be served
with the indictments upon arrival at the detention unit. They will be
searched, photographed and fingerprinted, a list of their belongings
will be made, and they will be sent for a medical checkup.
The accused are expected to make an initial appearance before judges
on Friday afternoon to enter a plea.
The defence attorneys have announced that they will immediately file a
request for provisional release pending trial.
Cermak and Markac are charged on personal and command responsibility
with crimes committed as part of a joint criminal enterprise. They are
accused of responsibility for the killing of at least 150 Serbs from
the Krajina region, persecution, the plunder of Serb-owned property,
the deportation and forcible resettlement of tens of thousands of
people and other inhumane acts committed between August 4 and November
15, 1995, during and after Operation Storm.
(Hina) vm