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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Serbian government committed to fulfilling obligations in cooperation with The Hague

14 June 2005

Belgrade/New York, June 14, 2005, Serbian Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government and member of the National Council for Cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague Zoran Loncar has reiterated that the Serbian government and the state union of Serbia and Montenegro remain strongly committed to meeting in full all international obligations relating to cooperation with the ICTY.

Zoran Loncar

Speaking at the UN Security Council’s session dedicated to the work of the tribunal, Loncar said that the government is doing all it can to find the indictees and to establish whether some of them are hiding in Serbia-Montenegro.

Proof of this can be seen in the recent prompt action by the Serbian authorities in arresting the members of the Scorpions unit who were in Serbia immediately after the showing of video footage of the execution of innocent Muslim civilians, Loncar recalled.

They will be tried before Serbian courts, said Loncar and stressed that everyone else accused of war crimes will also be tried.

Loncar welcomed the fact that, after a very long time, both ICTY President Theodore Meron and its Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte submitted a positive report on Serbia-Montenegro.

Such a report represents the result of great efforts that the Serbia-Montenegrin Council of Ministers, the Serbian government, and the National Council for Cooperation with the ICTY have made over the past year, said Loncar.

He recalled that, thanks to great efforts of the Serbian government and Serbia-Montenegrin institutions, since November 2004, 13 indictees from Serbia and two from Republika Srpska have surrendered voluntarily to the tribunal.

As a sign of trust and recognition to the Serbian government and the state union of Serbia-Montenegro on their consistent and efficient cooperation with the ICTY, seven indictees were released pending trial. Loncar assessed that the best indicator of the positive level of cooperation between Serbia and Serbia-Montenegro with the ICTY is the mutual cooperation that has been established, thus showing that this court has confidence in the state bodies of Serbia-Montenegro.

Loncar emphasised that the Serbian government has from the very beginning stressed the need to establish decisive mutual cooperation and added that important steps have recently been taken in this respect.

Del Ponte mentioned several times that her prosecution has established excellent cooperation with the Serbian War Crimes Prosecution. This cooperation has led to a certain number of cases being transferred to the local judiciary, Loncar underlined. He said that the War Crimes Prosecution in Belgrade is currently processing 881 war crime cases.