FORMER YUGOSLAV PRESIDENT REFUSES TO TESTIFY AT ICTY WITHOUT STATE APPROVAL

Belgrade, 14 February: Former Yugoslav president Zoran Lilic has told Belgrade's B92 TV that he was on Thursday 14 February subpoenaed by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to testify at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, but that he will not go to the Hague until he receives a confirmation that the Supreme Defence Council has agreed with the Yugoslav government's decision to declassify confidential documents.

Lilic said he was aware that he might pay a 100,000-euro fine and serve a seven-year prison sentence, but that he would not testify until the state bodies pinpointed the documents for which he would be exempt from keeping the state and military secrets. He said he could not see "why we here cannot see what the state has given to the tribunal", if all persons employed at the tribunal had seen it, and these documents had thus become public.

"I really do not wish to be in The Hague, I don't even have the need to explain anything; I only wish to protect the data and the truth about this state. I want to know what was sent there and that these documents are original," Lilic said and added that the "state really has the obligation to take care about its citizens, regardless of their status in The Hague".

Lilic was the president of Yugoslavia between 1993 and 1997.

Source: Tanjug news agency, Belgrade, in English 1730 gmt 14 Feb 03
BBC International Monitoring Service

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