Luka Misetic, a lawyer for Gen. Gotovina, accused of war crimes in 1995, wrote this to the ICTY this week, stating that both the UN tribunal and Croatia have the common interests to establish correct historical facts and that this would harm neither the prosecution nor the defence in the Gotovina case.
In September the Croatian Government sent letters to the ICTY asking to be involved as an amicus curiae in the procedures which the UN war crimes tribunal is conducting against three Croatian Army (HV) Generals - Ante Gotovina, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac - and in the ICTY trial against six war-time Bosnian Croat leading politicians and military officials.
In this context Prime Minister Ivo Sanader explained that Zagreb opted for this move as it could neither agree with nor accept the qualifications from the indictments about the criminal enterprise involving the state and military leadership of Croatia in mid 1990s.
"In our capacity as a friend of the court we are going to challenge all what is unacceptable to us," Sanader said.
Although interests of Croatia and (Gotovina's) defence are congruent in many aspects, the defence team in this case are not lawyers for Croatia, Misetic wrote in the letter emphasising that it is the interest of both the Tribunal and Croatia to establish the true historical facts.
The Office of Chief Prosecutor in the ICTY is against Zagreb's request to appear as a friend of the court in the case "Gotovina, Cermak and Markac" and in the trial "Prilic and others", explaining that areas in which the Croatian Government would like to act as an amicus curiae are too broad and unspecified.
According to a letter which the prosecution lodged this week with the ICTY regarding the matter, the areas are also of no importance for establishing individual responsibility of the indictees in question.
The Office of the Chief Prosecutor believes that Croatia's request is not an expression of its wish to establish the truth but it is more a consequence of Zagreb's concern about possible unfavourable financial and political repercussions for Croatia, such as, for instance, damages applications.
The Office of the Chief Prosecutor also accuses Croatia of being partial which is why, it believes, Croatia cannot be helpful to ICTY trial chambers in the said cases.