"The Appeals Chamber considered that 'Mario Cerkez's sentence has to be revised'," reads a press release issued by the tribunal on Thursday.
The full reasons for the release of Cerkez will be given in "the Judgement which will be rendered on 17 December 2004 at 2.15 pm in the case The Prosecutor v. Dario Kordic and Mario Cerkez", the statement reads.
The Appeals Chamber, presided by Judge Wolfgang Schomburg of Germany, "instructs the Registrar to take all the necessary measures for the release of Mario Cerkez and order the Registrar to enable Mario Cerkez -- if he so wishes -- to be present when the Judgement will be delivered".
A lawyer for Cerkez, Bozo Kovacic, told Hina on the phone he did not know what kind of judgment would be delivered, but "judging from (the Appeals Chamber's) ruling in the case of Tihomir Blaskic, I expect a conviction regarding counts on the detention of civilians".
The lawyer believes that the final sentence could be shorter than in the case of Blaskic (who was sentenced to nine years' imprisonment) as Cerkez was accused of detaining prisoners at three locations while in the Blaskic case there were more locations and Blaskic was held responsible for using detainees as human shields.
Cerkez has been at the Scheveningen detention centre since 6 October 1997 when he surrendered voluntarily.
It may be concluded from today's decision that Cerkez is likely to get less than eight years in jail.
Dario Kordic (aged 44), a former political leader of Croats in central Bosnia, was sentenced by the trial chamber in February 2001 to 25 years in prison, while Cerkez (aged 45), who was a war-time commander of a local Bosnian Croat Defence (HVO) unit, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for war crimes committed through the persecution of local Bosniaks (Muslims) in the Lasva Valley from 1992 to 1994. The indictment included the 16 April 1993 massacre in the village of Ahmici as one of the graves crimes.
Kordic surrendered voluntarily with Cerkez on 6 October 1997 and since then has been detained in Scheveningen.
Their trial started on 12 April 1999. A total of 241 witnesses were questioned and about 4,300 pieces of evidence were presented during a 240-day hearing. The trial chamber, presided by a British judge, the late Richard May, made the ruling in February 2001.