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U.S. Department of State Office of the Spokesman Press Statement

Press Statement by M. Lee McClenny, Acting Spokesman
December 24, 1998

FRY Openly Harbors Indicted War Criminals

For years, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has sought the transfer of the "Vukovar Three"--three indicted war criminals charged with the mass murder of 260 unarmed men near Vukovar, Croatia in 1991. On December 17, the three Serbian military officers known as the Vukovar Three (Mile Mrksic, Veselin Sljivancanin, and Miroslav Radic) openly appeared at a military court in Belgrade, at the invitation of the Milosevic government. We strongly condemn the newest move by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to initiate unilateral, sham proceedings against the men, in blatant violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1207 and earlier resolutions, which required their immediate transfer to the Tribunal. The International Tribunal has primacy over these issues, and the FRY must immediately comply with all of its obligations to the Tribunal under international law and UN Security Council resolutions, by turning the Vukovar Three and all other indicted war criminals on FRY territory over to the Hague.

This latest act of defiance is just another in a long series of violations by FRY authorities, who have failed to comply with the Tribunal's orders: they have failed to transfer or even facilitate the surrender of a single Serb indictee to the Tribunal; they have failed to issue visas to allow ICTY investigators into Kosovo (and into the rest of the FRY, including for investigations of crimes committed against ethnic Serbs); they have failed to adopt implementing legislation that would allow full cooperation with the Tribunal; and they are now openly harboring indicted war criminals.

Belgrade knows that the "outer wall" of sanctions still in force against the FRY will not be lifted until there is full compliance with the Tribunal's orders. In addition, the United States and other Security Council members are currently considering further sanctions against the FRY government in light of this brazen act of non-compliance with the Tribunal and in the face of Belgrade's continued defiance of Security Council requests under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter.

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