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Croatia to Surrender Zlatko Aleksovski, First War Crime Suspect
Meantime, top Croat suspect is found
He was the warden of the prison Kaonik, where he held meetings with representatives of the International Red Cross and inspectors from the European Union's mission. Zlatko Aleksovski allowed illegal interrogations of imprisoned individuals as well the practice of using prisoners for slave labor and as human shields.
—Globus Number 259 from 24 November, 1995
ZAGREB, July 10 (Reuters) - Croatian authorities will hand over a Bosnian Croat war crimes suspect to a U.N. criminal tribunal, in the country's first case of extradition to the international body, newspapers said on Wednesday. At the same time, a leading political weekly reported that the tribunal's number one Croat suspect, former Bosnian Croat leader Dario Kordic, remained living in the centre of Zagreb with impunity. The Split county court ruled on Tuesday that it would comply with the tribunal's request to turn over Zlatko Aleksovski to its custody, Slobodna Dalmacija daily and other media said.
It is the first time that Croatia acted on its three-month old special law on cooperation with the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague as required by the Dayton peace agreement. Court officials were not immediately available to confirm the reports. Aleskovski, 36, one of six Bosnian Croats accused of the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Bosnian central Lasva valley, was arrested in June in Split and has been held in custody ever since.
Under strong pressure from abroad, senior Croatian officials said all the indictees found on Croatian soil would be arrested and turned over to the Hague tribunal. The Council of Europe has made Croatia's admittance conditional upon its compliance with the U.N. war crimes court.
It is believed that many of the suspects are at large in Bosnia, but Globus weekly brought up new evidence that the man who tops the tribunal's list of most wanted Croat suspects live in the centre of Zagreb. It published pictures of Kordic in white shirt and sneakers, taken allegedly on Monday, in front of his apartment in Zagreb's central Tresnjevka district. The weekly said Kordic lived on the fourth floor with no name on the door, in a new-built block owned by the defence ministry, where he moved immediately after he had been indicted. Globus quoted a list of state officials, including the police, the county court and foreign and interior ministries, who refused to comment on Kordic's whereabouts.
When indicted in November 1995, Kordic was the head of the Bosnian wing of the Croatian ruling party, HDZ (Croatian
Democratic Union). The Hague tribunal charged him with crimes against humanity committed against the Muslims in the Lasva valley, where he was the political and military leader. Kordic's right hand at the time, general Tihomir Blaskic, handed himself over voluntarily to the Tribunal in April. The tribunal has so far indicted 75 men, 18 of them Croats, and holds seven in its Hague cells. |
He was charged with grave breaches of laws or customs of war, in particular for unlawful treatment of Muslim detainees while he was the commander of several prison camps. Bosnian Muslims and Croats fought a bitter 10-month war in 1993 overshadowed by the central Serb-Muslim conflict. The exact date of Aleskovski's extradition could not be specified, since under the law he has a right to appeal to a higher court within eight days.
Berserkistan, July 5 · Croatian Committee to Increase Cooperation with Tribunal
Berserkistan, June 9 · Croatian Police Arrest War Crimes Suspect Zlatko Aleksovski
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