Prisoner Exchange

In Gradiþka and Zenica

Banjaluka, 5 August, 1997 (AIM) - Last night, on the bridge separating Gradiska and Stara Gradiska, Croat side freed nine Serb soldiers captured in West Slavonia and in western part of Republika Srpska (RS).

Mr.Dragoslav and Mr. Vaso Ristiå from Tesliå, Mr. Petko Maleþevic from ¼elinac, Mr. Zoran Maliniå and Mr. Anðelko Teodoroviå from Banjaluka, Mr.Ranko Grbiå from Kozarska Dubica, Mr. Zivko Mutic from Novi Grad, Mr. ªeljko Maljkoviå from Grahovo and Mr. Dalibor Moravac from Prnjavor were released from Croatian prisons in Split and Sibenik.

Serb side let go eight Croats and canceled their prison terms in the RS jails. Mr. Jurica Deliå did not want to be transferred to RS territory and stated that he intended to live in Ljubija, the current residing place of his family. The body of Mr. Rudolf Perisin, the pilot who was killed in MIG 21 in the action bombardment of the bridge near Gradiska in May of

1. was delivered to the Croats. In the course of exchange , the body of Mr. Radovan Lakic, Serb army officer who was killed in the region of Glamoc in the fall of 1995, was also identified. In the village Mliniþte, between Mrkonjiå Grad and Glamoč, 16 bodies exhumed from the massgrave in Caprazlije, between Grahovo and Livno, were delivered to Serbs yesterday. On this occasion, the Commission for exchange of war prisoners of Herzeg-Bosnia also gave some 50 files on other people found in mass graves near Grahovo and Jajce.

During the course of yesterday, Mr. Nenad Skrbic and Mr. Dusan Skrebic, Serb Army officers who were secretly held by Bosniaks for almost two years, were released from the prison in Zenica and deported to Banjaluka in the SFOR helicopter.(end)