ZAGREB, April 3 (Hina) - Croatian President Stjepan Mesic said on Saturday he would be able to comment on the latest indictments from the war crimes tribunal in The Hague once he saw them.
ZAGREB, April 3 (Hina) - Croatian President Stjepan Mesic said on
Saturday he would be able to comment on the latest indictments from
the war crimes tribunal in The Hague once he saw them.#L#
Speaking to reporters at his office after his usual Saturday morning
meeting with citizens, he was asked to comment on the contradictory
statements the tribunal's chief prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, made with
regard to the detention of generals Mladen Markac and Ivan Cermak.
Mesic said it had been agreed when the two generals flew to The Hague
that their detention pending trial would be very brief since they had
surrendered voluntarily, had not been arrested and had said the were
willing to answer every question from the tribunal.
"It was deemed unnecessary that they should stay even one day longer
than necessary, but (...) del Ponte has now evidently evaluated that
they must answer some questions before the trial date is set," Mesic
said, adding that it would be fair if that was a short period of
time.
He was also asked to comment on or confirm that former
Counterintelligence Agency (POA) chief Franjo Turek had given a
presentation at Mesic's Office on the tapping of journalists' phones.
Mesic said he had been present at a routine presentation at his office
at which it was said that there were intelligence people from various
countries in Croatia and that POA followed their work, including their
contacts. He stressed that no diplomatic representatives had been
mentioned in any one case and that there had been no mention of the
tapping of journalists' phones at all.
Mesic went on to say that he assumed the same presentation had been
made to those in charge of intelligence services, but added he could
not comment on the one made to Prime Minister Ivo Sanader or what he
said because he was not familiar with that presentation.
Asked to comment on his statement after the presentation that video
footage of those contacts had been shown at the presentation, Mesic
said POA had detected some foreign intelligence people who had been in
contact not only with journalists but also with "our people". He
reiterated that no mention had been made of taped conversations.
Asked if video footage was not in effect a measure of tailing
journalists, Mesic said "we can't prohibit the intelligence service to
follow people it is convinced have an intelligence job in Croatia. It
is normal that they should follow such people or we would have to ban
intelligence services".
Speaking of the economy, the President said "we have to invest
additional efforts in order to reactivate our production and exports
through our own capital but also by engaging foreign capital and
foreign technology".
He added it was necessary to discourage the export of raw materials
and pass legislation to help foreign investors profit by producing in
Croatia.
The President also said it was unacceptable that there was so much
uncultivated farmland in Croatia and that instead of exporting Croatia
was importing food.
He once again advocated the opening of more free zones, which he said
would increase employment.
(Hina) ha