PODGORICA (Yugoslavia), Oct 18: A retired general who is among four former Yugoslav army officers charged over war crimes committed in Croatia is to hand himself in to the UN tribunal in The Hague on Sunday, the man’s lawyer said.

“My client insists on being before the court’s judges as quickly as possible,” attorney Goran Rodic told reporters Thursday in Podgorica, capital of the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro.

The indicted former general, Pavle Strugar, has spent the last two weeks in a Podgorica hospital with kidney problems.

An earlier report in the local Vijesti newspaper had said he would appear before the court, which is officially known as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), on Saturday.

The paper said he would be travelling to the Dutch capital with his doctor.

Noting that Strugar would be the first person resident in Yugoslavia to give himself in voluntarily to the ICTY, the lawyer said that “although very ill (he) does not want to cause any problems for either his family or the state.”

Rodic added that Strugar would be flown to The Hague at no cost by Montenegro’s Blueline air transport company, and that his doctors would have the final word on when he could travel.

The Montenegrin government has offered guarantees to the war crimes tribunal to enable Strugar to remain free pending the start of his trial.

Another of the officers, Vice-Admiral Miodrag Jokic, is also ready to appear before the ICTY on similar charges, an official of Serbia’s New Democracy party said recently.—AFP