BosNet NEWS: April 11, 1996

From: Davor <dwagner@MAILBOX.SYR.EDU>

Bosnia-Herzegovina News Directory

CONTENTS

[01] Croatia indicts Bosnians

Croatian authorities Wednesday indicted six Bosnian Muslims on charges of planning to kill a renegade Muslim leader hiding in Croatia, Croatian television reported.

"There is a founded suspicion that the accused intended to commit a criminal act of killing Fikret Abdic," Drago Marincel, Rijeka county public prosecutor, told the TV.

It said Abdic, the former Bihac tycoon who fought alongside Serbs against the Sarajevo government, was supposed to be killed by a shoulder-launched grenade fired at his car on a busy road between the industrial port of Rijeka and the tourist resort of Opatija on the Adriatic coast.

Four young Muslim men and one woman, all residents of the northwestern Bosnian town of Bihac, were arrested last Thursday near Senj, 60 miles south of Rijeka.

Two of the group worked for the Bosnian police in Bihac, while the sixth indicted, still at large, worked for the Bosnian security service, the television said.

A Croatian daily Vjesnik said Wednesday the group had various weapons including large amounts of explosives, grenade launchers, sub-machine guns and anti-tank and hand grenades stashed in Croatia.

Bosnian ambassador to Croatia Kasim Trnka told a Bosnian news agency earlier Wednesday he was surprised Croatia had not informed the Bosnian government or the Bosnian embassy in Zagreb of the arrest.

"Bosnia and Croatia are members of Interpol so it was logical to cooperate in this case, exchange information and fight against terrorism together," Trnka said to Onasa news agency.

But he also said Bosnia had no reason to send its terrorist groups to the neigboring country. He thought the terms used by Croatian officials concerning the case such as "state terrorism" and "terrorist group sent from Bosnia" did not help establish a full cooperation between the two countries, ONASA reported.

Vjesnik said Croatian Foreign Ministry protested to the Bosnian charge d'affaires in Zagreb, expressing ``profound concern'' over the arrival in Croatia of an alleged terrorist group from Bosnia.

The five accused will remain in custody in the Rijeka county prison.