ZAGREB, May 5 (Hina) - Defence counsel for Croatian generals Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac on Wednesday agreed with the prosecution of the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague that their clients be interviewed by the prosecution, after
which the defence will again request provisional release for the two generals, Markac's attorney Miroslav Separovic said.
ZAGREB, May 5 (Hina) - Defence counsel for Croatian generals Ivan
Cermak and Mladen Markac on Wednesday agreed with the prosecution of
the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague that their clients be
interviewed by the prosecution, after which the defence will again
request provisional release for the two generals, Markac's attorney
Miroslav Separovic said.#L#
"We talked with Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte and agreed on the
interview, which should take place in early June," Separovic told Hina
on the phone.
Cermak's attorney Cedomir Prodanovic confirmed that agreement had been
reached with the prosecution regarding the interview.
He said that after the generals were interviewed the defence would
again request their provisional release.
Attorneys Separovic, Prodanovic and Goran Mikulicic will on Thursday
visit Cermak and Markac at the tribunal's detention centre of
Scheveningen.
The Hague tribunal last week rejected a request by Cermak and Markac
to be granted provisional release before they were interviewed by the
prosecution.
The two generals are charged on the basis of individual and command
responsibility with crimes against humanity and war crimes committed
through the expulsion of Serbs in the Knin area during and after the
1995 Operation "Storm". At the time, Cermak was commander of the Knin
Military District and Markac was commander of special police forces.
They surrendered voluntarily to the UN tribunal on March 11 and the
following day pleaded not guilty at their initial appearance before
the tribunal.
(Hina) rml sb