960406

Bosnia frees Serb POWs but

Serbs fail to respond

PALE, Bosnia: Bosnia's Moslem-Croat Federation freed 46 Serb prisoners of war late on Friday but the Bosnian Serbs failed to respond with the hoped-for release of their detainees.

Bosnia's mainly Muslim central government freed 18 Serbs from their central jail in Sarajevo into the hands of Michael Steiner, deputy to the international community's High Representative to Bosnia, Carl Bildt.

Their partners, the Bosnian Croats, freed 28 POWs in the centre of the country.

The unilateral gesture came after intense international pressure on the Federation to comply with the terms of Bosnia's peace deal to avoid possible harsh financial repercussions.

Diplomats said it took the personal intervention of Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, who is still recovering from a heart problem, to finally get the jail doors open.

The release came after Western diplomats set a midnight deadline for prisoners to be freed or dossiers on their cases submitted to the U.N. War Crimes tribunal in The Hague.

Although the Federation has now belatedly complied with the peace plan it still holds around 20 POWs it considers war criminals, as it is permitted to do. The U.N. Tribunal will decide if the men have a case to answer or should be freed.

Steiner drove with the 18 men freed in Sarajevo to Pale, the village that serves as the "capital" for the Bosnian Serbs, to the evident surprise of officials there.

But the hoped-for reciprocal gesture did not materialise, with the Serbs taking no steps to release the 16 prisoners they hold who should have been liberated by mid-January.

Bosnian Serb leader Momcilo Krajisnik failed to turn up for a scheduled meeting with Steiner in Pale. Officials with Steiner said Krajisnik would have been embarrassed to appear and then seem ungrateful by not freeing some Moslem POWs.

"We were able to bring 18 prisoners here tonight to Pale and I regret very much that Mr. Krajisnik did not find the time even to greet them," Steiner told reporters before leaving empty handed.

Steiner said the Bosnian Serb entity, the Republika Srpska, would now suffer the consequences for failing to comply.

Envoys said earlier that non-compliance would lead to exclusion from next week's major donors conference in Brussels, a punishment that could cost the Serbs many millions of dollars in reconstruction funding they might otherwise have received.

Krajisnik was later quoted by Serb news agency SRNA saying the Serbs wanted to hold on to 12 POWs they considered war criminals and would soon publish the evidence against them.

Negotiations with the Serbs were complicated by the case of Colonel Aleksa Krsmanovic, a Bosnian Serb army officer returned to a Sarajevo prison by the Hague Tribunal which said it had no evidence to back charges against him.

The Serbs argue he should be freed. Steiner told Reuters the Bosnian government had now agreed to refer his case back to the Tribunal, along with some fresh evidence, and would release Krsmanovic if The Hague said there were no grounds to keep him.

The 18 Serb prisoners said they had been held for seven months in the northern city of Tuzla after being captured in a battle for the strategic village of Vozuca. They looked tired but relieved to be free.

Steiner told Reuters he considered the day a success, despite the failure of the Serbs to cooperate, since both partners in the Federation had finally done the bidding of the international community.-Reuter