A motion published by the ICTY on Thursday reads that the indictment against Marijacic fails to state the ICTY's order which the accused is alleged to have violated and that it does not provide sufficient evidence about the ICTY's jurisdiction over the accused or the act he is charged with.
The motion reads that Marijacic was charged under the ICTY's Rule 77 with having disclosed information which he knew was in violation of an order of the Tribunal. However, the indictment does not specify the order which Marijacic is alleged to have violated, the defence said in the motion.
"The most critical element of the prosecution is that there is an order of the Trial Chamber from the trial of Blaskic which Marijacic allegedly violated. Indeed, if there is no order, there can be no violation of Rule 77 and the case should be dismissed," it is stated in the motion.
"The ICTY therefore has neither personal nor material jurisdiction over the accused until the prosecutor identifies the specific order of the Trial Chamber which Marijacic violated".
Marijacic, editor-in-chief of the "Hrvatski list" weekly, was indicted on April 26 this year for contempt of court after publishing in "Hrvatski list" of November 18, 2004 the identity and testimony of a protected witness in the trial of Tihomir Blaskic. The tribunal also indicted a correspondent for the weekly, former intelligence chief Markica Rebic, who under the indictment provided Marijacic with the witness's statement to the prosecution and the transcript of his testimony from a closed-door hearing in the Blaskic trial on December 19, 1997.
The witness in question is a former Dutch Stabilisation Force (SFOR) officer in Bosnia-Herzegovina, who testified about the unsuccessful attempt by ICTY indictee Miroslav Bralo Cicko to surrender to SFOR in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1997. After he spent several hours at the entrance to the SFOR base in Zavidovici near Sarajevo and after phone consultations with the ICTY, Bralo was returned with the explanation that he was not on the list of indictees.
At their initial appearance before the ICTY on June 14, Marijacic and Rebic pleaded not guilty and on the same day their defence counsel submitted a motion to dismiss the indictment against them.
The motion for dismissal by Rebic's attorneys was not published by the ICTY by Thursday.