[Crvena zvezda]

Croatian police deny reports on mojahedin using port of Split to reach Bosnia
March 24, 2004
BIH, HR
Text of report in English by Croatian news agency HINA

Zagreb, 24 March: The Croatian Interior Ministry said on Wednesday [24 March] it had no knowledge of Islamic Mujahideen fighters travelling through the southern coastal city of Split after receiving training in central Bosnia, as reported by Italian media.

"The Ministry and the Police Directorate have no information to support the media reports. We find these reports arbitrary and not based on relevant facts," Interior Ministry spokesman Zlatko Mehun told Hina.

Mehun said that the Croatian police were in constant contact with foreign police forces and that they had received "no information either from the Italian or the Spanish police about the port of Split being used by Mujahideen to enter and leave Bosnia-Hercegovina".

Some Croatian media on Wednesday carried reports by the Italian press saying that the Spanish police and Italian security services had found that the Spanish cell of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, which is suspected of train bombings in Madrid two weeks ago that killed nearly 200 people, consisted of Mujahideen trained in camps near the central Bosnian town of Zenica. The Mujahideen were reportedly transferred to Spain via Split and Ancona.