"The defence suggests acquittal on all counts. The trial chamber failed to appropriately assess both mitigating and aggravating circumstances, and based conclusions on assumptions. Stela's role has been overestimated and the sentence is inappropriate," lawyer Zelimir Par told the ICTY appeals chamber in The Hague.
The lawyer also spoke about what he labelled disparity in the ICTY verdicts and too harsh punishment imposed on his client.
Par also raised the question of whether the conflict between Croats and Bosniaks (Muslims) in Bosnia-Herzegovina could be characterised as an international conflict. He said that for his client it was "internal defensive war in which he fought at his doorstep against his neighbours" and that is why his client could not be held responsible for the breaches of the Geneva Conventions regulating international conflicts.
I believe that he could not know about the existence of international armed conflict and that he could not answer for that, Par said, among other things.
Representatives of the prosecution said the practice so far had been to establish the existence of an international conflict according to objective circumstances and not according to awareness or intentions of the accused.
The prosecutor also quoted the testimony of 17 witnesses who spoke about the presence of Croatia's army (HV) in Bosnia Herzegovina in 1993, particularly in the area of Mostar and that Tuta (Mladen Naletilic a.k.a Tuta) and said that Stela visited HV troops stationed in Heliodrom facilities near Mostar.
The prosecutor went on to say that HV soldiers took part in crimes committed against Mostar Bosniaks and in their evictions from flats in that city.
The prosecution will continue to present its arguments against the defence team's appeals tomorrow.
Earlier on Monday, the appeals chamber, presided by Judge Fausto Pocar of Italy, started the two-day hearing about appeals submitted by the defence counsel and the prosecution against the verdicts which the tribunal passed in the trial of the former commander of the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) Convicts' Battalion, Mladen Naletilic aka Tuta, and the commander of one of the battalion's units, Vinko Martinovic aka Stela, who on March 31, 2003 were sentenced to 20 and 18 years in prison respectively.
The trial chamber, presided by Judge Liu Daqun, sentenced Naletilic for the persecution of Muslim civilians in the areas of Mostar and Jablanica, torture and imposing of forcible labour on prisoners, illegal displacement of civilians, and wanton destruction and plunder committed in the period from April 1993 to January 1994. Naletilic was acquitted of nine counts, including those referring to murder.
Martinovic, commander of the anti-terrorist unit "Mrmak", was found guilty of nine counts of persecution, murder, inhumane treatment and plunder and acquitted of eight counts.
Martinovic has been in prison since August 9, 1999, and Naletilic since March 24, 2000.
The appeal chamber will announce its ruling at a later date.