MOSTAR WAR VETERANS BLOCK STREETS UPON ARREST OF HVO MEMBER

MOSTAR, Sept 11 (Hina) - Goran Vlajinic Vlaja, a former member of a Croat Defence Council (HVO) Mostar unit, was apprehended in the southern city of Mostar on Monday. Immediately upon his arrest, Bosnian Croat disabled war veterans obstructed the passage of Stabilisation Force (SFOR) vehicles, as the NATO-led SFOR assisted in the apprehension. Mostar Croat war veterans hindered traffic at several locations in the city and did not allow 10 SFOR armoured personnel carriers to pass. Herzegovina-Neretva Canton local police were not notified of the apprehension, whereas the International Police Task Force (IPTF) declined to comment on Monday's operation. The cantonal court's prosecution office could not confirm whether an indictment had been issued against Vlajinic. Vlajinic was arrested in a cafe near the town market in western Mostar. Eyewitnesses said the operation was carried out by "masked persons who had the word 'policija' (police) inscribed on their uniforms", and claimed that they did not know whose police they were as their cars were without licence plates. The task of SFOR troops involved in the action was to protect the area. The eyewitnesses also added that Vlajinic's arm was hurt during his handcuffing. Last month Moslem (Bosniak) police officers from the joint Croat and Moslem units in the town of Kiseljak (outside Sarajevo) arrested war crimes suspect Dominik Ilijasevic, a.k.a. Coma. Following his arrest, Ivan Bacak, a Croat official and Deputy Interior Minister of the Croat-Moslem Bosnian Federation tendered his resignation. The UN Secretary General's special envoy to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Jacques Paul Klein, said Croat officials at the federal Interior Ministry had not been involved in the operation, blaming them for allowing relevant information to leak during previous similar attempts of apprehension of Bosnian Croat war crimes suspects. According to local police in the south-western municipality of Posusje, Zoran Basic, a member of the former (Croat-led) Convicts' Battalion, was arrested on Monday morning. This notorious battalion was commanded by Mladen Naletilic Tuta, a war crimes indictee currently awaiting trial at the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY). (hina) jn ms