BELGRADE, April 23 (Hina) - Milan Martic, the former president of the so-called Republika Srpska Krajina, Croatian territory formerly occupied by Serb rebels, who has been indicted for the May 1995 shelling of Zagreb, confirmed in a
Serb language daily published in Frankfurt that he would surrender to The Hague.
BELGRADE, April 23 (Hina) - Milan Martic, the former president of
the so-called Republika Srpska Krajina, Croatian territory
formerly occupied by Serb rebels, who has been indicted for the May
1995 shelling of Zagreb, confirmed in a Serb language daily
published in Frankfurt that he would surrender to The Hague. #L#
Martic's lawyer Strahinja Kastratovic has said his client would
reach an agreement with competent Yugoslav bodies as to when he will
go to the UN war crimes tribunal.
"I am not guilty and I am not a coward. In the interest of the Serbian
people, I will voluntarily answer the Hague tribunal's call to
prove that I am not guilty," Martic told the Vijesti daily.
The newspaper also quotes the director of the Veritas Information
Centre, Savo Strbac, who said that "relatives and Krajina
organisations in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia approved of
Martic's decision, since he is the only one who can prove to the
international community the truth about the suffering of the
Serbian people in Krajina."
Strbac also told Vijesti he constantly urged Martic to go to The
Hague and defend himself by saying that he "shelled Zagreb out of
necessity, as thousands of Serbs in western Slavonia were exposed
to extermination."
(hina) ha