ZAGREB, April 29 (Hina) - A former assistant interior minister, Zeljko Sacic, said on Thursday that Hague war crimes tribunal witness Milan Levar was under police protection between 1998 and early 2000 and dismissed as untrue claims
by former and current senior officials of the Interior Ministry that the request for Levar's protection had never reached the police department of Lika-Senj County, where Levar was resident.
ZAGREB, April 29 (Hina) - A former assistant interior minister, Zeljko
Sacic, said on Thursday that Hague war crimes tribunal witness Milan
Levar was under police protection between 1998 and early 2000 and
dismissed as untrue claims by former and current senior officials of
the Interior Ministry that the request for Levar's protection had
never reached the police department of Lika-Senj County, where Levar
was resident.#L#
"I personally phoned Ivan Dasovic, who at the time was the head of the
Lika-Senj County police department, and ordered him to provide for
(Levar's) protection, after which he held a meeting with his
subordinates and entrusted them with that task," Sucic, who until
February 2000 was assistant interior minister in charge of criminal
police, said at a news conference.
Sacic said that the Lika-Senj County police department had records on
the case and dismissed as false claims by the ministry leadership from
2000 and the incumbent ministry about the request for protection not
having reached the police in Gospic, where Levar lived.
He confirmed that the Cabinet of the (Interior) Minister received the
request from the government's office for cooperation with the Hague
tribunal on 14 April 1998.
Sacic said that the police had provided different forms of protection
for Levar during his term of office and expressed satisfaction with
it.
Allowing for the possibility that the incumbent leadership of the
Interior Ministry as well as the Ministry's leadership in 2000 lacked
information, Sasic said that claims about the request for Levar's
protection not reaching Gospic were made by police officials who
wanted to dodge responsibility and shift it to him and the former
police leadership.
Asked which officials he was talking about, Sacic said that "questions
should be addressed to people who prepared a report on the case for
former minister Sime Lucin".
Condemning what he called an act of violence against Levar, Sacic said
that as a criminal law expert he still could not state with certainty
that Levar was murdered.
"As far as I know, that case is still not solved", Sacic said.
He added that he was ready to testify in court as well as launch
procedure to establish who was responsible for the disappearance of
documents confirming that Levar had been under protection. He
dismissed the possibility of some of his immediate subordinates being
responsible for that.
Former Interior Minister Sime Lucin told Hina today he could not
comment on what the police were doing between 1998 and 2000, but that
upon taking up office in 2000 he did not obtain a single document
regarding Levar's protection.
Lucin said that after Levar's murder on 28 August 2000 he ordered an
internal investigation during which it was established that the
request for protection did not reach the Lika-Senj County police
department and that it had stopped at the office of assistant
ministers Josko Moric and Zeljko Sacic, from where verbal orders were
issued.
After last week's settlement on the payment of compensation between
the State and Levar's wife and son, the Interior Ministry admitted
that omissions were made in meeting the request for Levar's
protection, but that there was no possibility of launching
disciplinary proceedings against responsible unnamed police officers
because the statute of limitations had expired.
Levar volunteered to testify before the UN war crimes tribunal in The
Hague about crimes committed against Serb civilians in the area of
Gospic in 1991. Despite an extensive police investigation and repeated
claims by the former authorities that the investigation was almost
completed, the perpetrator has not been discovered to date.
The Interior Ministry stated today that it would check Sacic's claims
about the Lika-Senj County police department having known about the
request for Levar's protection and having acted on that request during
his term of office.
"At the moment we can neither confirm nor dismiss Sacic's claims, but
we will look into the matter and issue a public statement," Ministry
spokesman Zlatko Mehun said.
(Hina) rml