With regard to the concept and participants in 'the joint criminal enterprise', the new indictment does not differ from the existing indictment, except that it provides more information, Florence Hartmann said.
"Neither the existing nor the amended indictment criminalizes the "Homeland War," nor does it say or even suggest that 'everyone' in the Croatian Army was a war criminal," Hartmann was quoted on the tribunal's web site as saying.
She added that "the new Cermak/Markac indictment submitted by the OTP has been filed following an Order from the Trial Chamber further to the Defense request for additional clarification".
Asked by a reporter why all persons who were named in the indictment as participants in the joint criminal enterprise were not indicted as in some previous ICTY cases and whether there was any defined criterion for indicting suspects, Hartmann said that not everybody had been indicted by the ICTY.
According to her, the Hague tribunal has never been entrusted with the task of indicting every individual who ever took part in a joint criminal enterprise, and she expressed hope that domestic courts dealing with war crimes would launch their own investigations and indict those that had not been indicted by the ICTY.
Hartmann announced that Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte would address the OSCE Permanent Council on 19 May 2005 in Vienna and that her visit to Vienna would be related to the OSCE project to build a domestically strong judiciary system.
The spokesman for the ICTY, Jim Landale stressed that "at this stage the amended Cermak and Markac indictment was a proposed indictment and had not been confirmed by the judges".
The draft amended indictment against generals Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac expands the number of participants in a joint criminal enterprise to include unnamed individuals from the Croatian government, the defence and interior ministries, the Croatian Democratic Union party and local authorities.
Alongside the accused Cermak and Markac, the original indictment, which was confirmed in 2004, mentioned as participants in the joint criminal enterprise General Ante Gotovina, the late president Franjo Tudjman and the late defence minister Gojko Susak, accusing them of alleged crimes during the 1995 Storm liberation operation.
The draft amended indictment now cites the then chiefs of staff of the Croatian army, the late generals Janko Bobetko and Zvonimir Cervenko, who was his successor, various officers, officials and members of the Croatian government, bringing the number of participants in the joint criminal enterprise to more than 1,000.
The proposed indictment has been strongly criticised in Croatia.