Ljubicic said that his defence was being obstructed and that the transfer of documents necessary for his trial was being stalled, which had prompted him to request the tribunal to issue a binding order to submit the necessary documents.
"Defence counsel addressed the governments of Croatia and the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina with the request to provide guarantees in April and it repeated its request several times, the last time on November 3, however, the governments disregarded the request," Ljubicic's attorney Tomislav Jonjic said at a status conference in The Hague.
Jonjic said that in his letter of November 3, Ljubicic had requested him to withdraw the requests for guarantees in protest of the behaviour of the two governments.
Jonjic also said that "in April 2002 the Croatian government provided guarantees for Ljubicic, only to withdraw them in May at somebody's intervention".
In the first request for guarantees, Zagreb was cited as Ljubicic's place of residence during provisional release, while in the second request Mostar was stated as the place of residence, so that guarantees were expected from the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Jonjic said that in spring this year Ljubicic was visited by justice ministers Vesna Skare Ozbolt of Croatia and Bojana Kristo of the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, who promised his client the guarantees.
In a phone interview with Hina, Croatia's Assistant Justice Minister Jaksa Muljacic, in charge of cooperation with the ICTY, dismissed claims that Ljubicic had been promised guarantees and that Croatia was stalling the submission of the necessary documents.
"It was stated that his request would be considered by the government's Council for Cooperation with the ICTY. The case was discussed by the Council in spring, but the decision on it was postponed," Muljacic said.
Ljubicic, age 43, surrendered voluntarily to the ICTY on November 21, 2001, several days after the indictment against him was unsealed. However, two years before that, he had been on the run and had been sought by the Croatian judiciary on the basis of an arrest warrant issued by the ICTY and findings of an investigation conducted by Croatian authorities.
The ICTY indictment charges Ljubicic with 15 counts of crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war, committed through expulsion, murder and violence against Muslims in the Lasva Valley, primarily the massacre in the village of Ahmici in April 1993. At the time, Ljubicic was the commander of the Croat Defence Council's (HVO) military police in the Central Bosnia Operative Zone.
Without explicitly mentioning the massacre at Ahmici, Ljubicic said in the courtroom today that he had only one stain.
"That stain is not so big as some here would like to prove, and I will try to put it in the framework which corresponds with my actual role," Ljubicic stated in a manner not characteristic for an indictee who previously pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Muljacic confirmed that Croatia had received the binding order for the submission of documents to Ljubicic's defence, adding that "73 percent of the documents" had been submitted, while the rest was being sought.
Muljacic neither confirmed nor dismissed claims by the defence counsel about the provision and subsequent withdrawal of guarantees by the Croatian government in 2002, stating that written guarantees had never been provided, although they could have been announced or provided verbally.
At the time Muljacic was Croatia's ambassador to The Netherlands.
Judge Amin El Mahdi promised at the end of the status conference to see that the trial started as soon as possible considering the fact that Ljubicic has been in custody for three years already.