WARSAW (AFP) - The European Union will not begin accession talks with Croatia next month unless Zagreb hands over fugitive general Ante Gotovina to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Poland said yesterday. «The date of March 17 has been set, and if by then General Gotovina has not been handed over to the tribunal, accession talks between the EU and Croatia will not begin,» said Foreign Minister Adam Rotfeld after talks in Warsaw with the war crime tribunal's chief prosecutor, Carla del Ponte.

BANJA LUKA (AFP) - Police have pressed charges against six Bosnian Serbs suspected of systematically looting the property of Bosnian Muslim returnees, a spokesman said yesterday. The six men are suspected in 22 cases of theft targeting Muslim returnee property in the northeastern town of Zvornik, police spokesman Dragomir Peric told AFP. The incidents took place between 2002 and 2005, he said, adding that the suspects had not been detained.

A Turkish national is thought to be among eight people found shot dead north of Baghdad, Iraqi police said yesterday, adding that all the victims were employed on a US military base. «Seven of the dead are Iraqis but the eighth is believed to be a Turk, as he has the name 'Turkey' tattooed on his body, but none of them were carrying identification papers,» Balad police officer Adel Abdallah said. He said the eight were abducted as they were heading to work on a US base some 10 kilometers from Balad. (AFP)

Roman Catholic officials in Bosnia accused local Serb authorities yesterday of responsibility for the murder of a Croat priest and his parents during the 1992-1995 war, and pressed for the culprits to be brought to justice. «The authorities of Republika Srpska are responsible for the illegal detention of priest Tomislav Matanovic and his parents... and eventually for their deaths,» the Banja Luka bishop's office said in a statement. «We demand the arrest and adequate sanctioning of those who ordered and committed this multiple crime,» the statement added. (AFP)