ZAGREB, June 30 (Hina) - Lawyer Goran Mikulicic, whom the Croatian government will appointed as its legal representative in the case of retired general Ante Gotovina accused by the UN war crimes tribunal at The Hague, has been quoted
by the Croatian Television as saying that his major task would be to challenge sections of the Gotovina indictment which allege that the Croatian authorities planned the ethnic cleansing of local Serbs.
ZAGREB, June 30 (Hina) - Lawyer Goran Mikulicic, whom the Croatian
government will appointed as its legal representative in the case
of retired general Ante Gotovina accused by the UN war crimes
tribunal at The Hague, has been quoted by the Croatian Television as
saying that his major task would be to challenge sections of the
Gotovina indictment which allege that the Croatian authorities
planned the ethnic cleansing of local Serbs. #L#
On Monday the Croatian government announced that it was going to
appoint lawyer Mikulicic at its session on Thursday as its legal
counsel in the case of Gen. Gotovina, indicted by the Hague-based
ICTY for war crimes committed during and in the wake of the 1995
Storm operation.
"The way in which the Gotovina indictment is drafted, as it was
earlier in the case against General (Janko) Bobetko, de facto shows
the state as an organisation which planned both ethnic cleansing
and the persecution on the religious and ethnic basis. This is, of
course, something with which the state does not agree," the Zagreb
lawyer was quoted by the HTV's prime time news programme as saying
on Monday evening.
He is also confident that statements given by a former American
ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbraith, who testified at the ICTY's
trial of ex-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic last week could
refute a part of the indictment issued against Gotovina,
particularly sections referring to the systematically planned
ethnic cleansing.
Commenting on government experts' stand that the Gotovina case can
be settled only at The Hague, Mikulicic said the status of Gen.
Gotovina "at this stage of the process, i.e. without (his)
appearance before the court cannot be changed, under the Tribunal's
rule".
He added that it was obvious that Gotovina was aware that "the time
has come when his status should be solved in one or another way".
Mikulicic was also the government's legal representative in the
case of another ICTY indictee, the late general Janko Bobetko, and
before that he represented Bosnian Croats Mario Cerkez and Zlatko
Aleksovski, also indicted by the ICTY.
(hina) ms