ICTY PRESIDENT TO SPEAK TO DETAINEES ABOUT THEIR REQUESTS

( Editorial: --> 3524 ) ZAGREB, Aug 13 (Hina) - President of the ICTY will most probably speak to the tribunal's detainees about their requests to improve their prison conditions on Friday, Hina was told by the spokesman for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Christian Chartier. Twenty-six ICTY detainees have forwarded an open letter to the ICTY president, Gabriella Kirk McDonald, dismissing claims by some reporters about alleged bad conditions of their cells. The prisoners did request a number of measurements aimed at improving the conditions in prisons and the functioning of the tribunal itself. The invitation for talks has been accepted and they will most probably take place in Scheweningen, where the cells are located, on Friday, Chartier said. The key suggestions concern a daily adequate medical care, more fresh air and exercise, more and better food, better accommodation of the visits by their immediate family and lawyers, and possibility to receive TV and radio programs from their own countries. "We have also prepared a separate document which has been forwarded by the Registry of the Tribunal to the President of the Tribunal, the Security Council, the General Assembly, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch as well as the Dutch authorities......In this document we identified five 'crucial issues': the need for fair and speedy trials, the inequality of resources available to the prosecution over the defence, the biased publicity given to our cases by concentrating on the prosecution, the improvement of our conditions of detention and the lack of care in examining indictments before issuing arrest warrants," said the detainees in the letter. (hina) lml 131708 MET aug 98