ICTY: SIMIC AND TADIC PLEAD NOT GUILTY

( Editorial: --> 2616 ) THE HAGUE, Feb 17 (Hina) - Miroslav Tadic and Milan Simic, the first Serbs who voluntarily surrendered to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Tuesday told the Hague-based tribunal they do not believe they are guilty of the crimes they were charged with. Tadic and Simic were charged, along with four other Serbs, for taking part in a "campaign of terror" against Croats and Muslims in the municipality of Bosanski Samac, northern Bosnia-Herzegovina, between 17 April and 20 November 1992. According to the bill of indictment, of 17,000 Croats and Muslims living in that municipality in 1991, only 300 remained. A terror campaign aimed at forcing Croats and Muslims to leave the area was started after Serb troops from Bosnia and other regions of the former Yugoslavia seized Bosanski Samac on 17 April 1992, the bill said. As part of the terror campaign, the Serbs imprisoned most prominent figures of Croat and Muslim nationality, set up concentration camps where they tortured and killed the detainees, evicted Croats and Muslims from their houses and moved Serbs in, looted Croat and Muslim property, banned Croats and Muslims from gathering in public locations, and forced them to wear white bands around the wrist to denote their being non-Serb. The bill of indictment says that Miroslav Tadic, 61, a retired secondary school teacher, took part in the planning and execution of the displacement and deportation of hundreds of Croats and Muslims from Bosanski Samac to other countries or parts of Bosnia not controlled by Serbs. Milan Simic, 38, entered the tribunal in a wheelchair. He was disabled after driving over a mine in 1993. Simic is charged with heavily beating Muhamed Bicic in June 1992 in the Bosanski Samac elementary school gym. The bill of indictment says that Simic and other persons beat Bicic with their feet, an iron bar and chair legs. (hina) ha jn 171858 MET feb 98