listened and edi-

ted in sofia, bg

* BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION - WORLD SERVICE

The international tribunal on former Yugoslavia has begun its first public hearing, into the case of a bosnian serb accused of murder and torture. The tribunal in The Hague is considering whether it should trial the man, Dusko Tadich, a former guard at a detention camp in northern Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the Serbs held prisoners several thousands missed muslims. He is currently in custody in Germany, where he is charged with having tortured to death at least ten people [...]

[...] In the first public hearing there was something unprecedendent that even many the officials were quite to expect [...]

- And which suspects are to be investigated first ?

- Well, the hearing here is a bit by the prosecution [...] Dusko Tadich, now he is the man who is suspected of war crimes, he's detained in Germany at the moment, while he has been charged with murder, turture and ethnic genocide. What the prosecution is trying to do is to trial [him] [...] they have additional witnesses, additional evidences against Tadich, which means Tadich not to be judged by the German authorities but by the tribunal itself.

- The essence of the tribunal argument being [...] a stronger case against him...

- That is it, exactly. A lot of witnesses are now refugees in various parts of europe. So that the reason German authorities might not see the need to actually condemn him [...] German represantive of the Justice ministry speaking in the tribunal has made quite clear that the German authorities themselves have a problem with that.

- [...] What is the evidence against this man Tadich ?

- The evidence is that he was not only a formerly guard of the Omarska camp, the detention camp in northern Bosnia, one of the most notorious, he was a man with special duties, he was a torturer par exellence, according to the allegations against him. Some of the details of the crimes he has committed with others, allegedly of the worst kind, from torture to beating to murder.

- [...] There will be some suspicions that Tadich is a small fish [...] Is the tribunal really doing its job ?

- Well, certainly the prosecutor has made it clear that he would like to work on the chain of command. At the same time they are not playing this character down. They agree he's not one of the political player in this game, but he's seen as a significant local ring-leader [...] He's a man that really should be put before the tribunal and is very much worth of attention. And you said that there is a very much divide between character like this and those who supposedly are at the top of the chain of command and the skepticism certainly will not be diminished: there is people who probably will never come before the tribunal.

- This is the first day of public hearing. How long the people expect this process to continue ?

- The tribunal itself is set for about four years. Probably it'll run till the end of the century. The tribunal itself, however, could yet become a permanent body. [...] It may become in some way responsible for acting on behalf of other troubled spots, Rwanda [...] [it needs] the backing and the financial support [...]