UN tribunal Prosecutor to visit Yugoslavia to promote better cooperation

The Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Carla Del Ponte, will visit the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia next week in an effort to obtain better cooperation from authorities there, the Hague-based UN court said today.

Ms. Del Ponte will travel to Belgrade on Monday and Podgorica on Tuesday to discuss access to witnesses and archives and the arrest and transfer to the tribunal of all indicted suspects, among other issues.

In other news, the Office of the Prosecutor yesterday filed a document signed by Ms. Del Ponte which, if it is confirmed by the judges, will be the third version of the indictment against Slobodan Milosevic and others for their involvement in the events in Kosovo.

This development follows the confirmation on 8 October of another indictment against Mr. Milosevic, this time for his responsibility for events in Croatia between August 1991 and June 1992, when he allegedly participated in a joint criminal enterprise to forcibly remove the majority of Croats and other non-Serbs from one-third of the territory of the Republic of Croatia, an area he planned to become part of a new Serb-dominated state.

According to that indictment, Mr. Milosevic was President of the Republic of Serbia during the relevant period and as such exercised effective control or substantial influence over the participants of the joint criminal enterprise and, either alone or acting in concert with others, effectively controlled or substantially influenced the actions of the Federal Presidency of the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia.