ZAGREB, Oct 3 (Hina) - Defence counsel for General Ante Gotovina have sent a request to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague to withdraw the indictment against their client, citing factual omissions and lack of competence of the
tribunal.
ZAGREB, Oct 3 (Hina) - Defence counsel for General Ante Gotovina
have sent a request to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague to
withdraw the indictment against their client, citing factual
omissions and lack of competence of the tribunal. #L#
"I have personally filed a request that the indictment be
withdrawn, enclosing documents that reaffirm the legal basis for
the withdrawal of the indictment," the general's American lawyer,
Luka Misetic, told Hina on Friday.
Misetic said the tribunal did not reveal the fact that two persons
from a list of 150 killed were alive, although the office of the
prosecutor had known this before the indictment was confirmed.
He went on to say that by definition of the UN secretary general, the
Hague tribunal was not competent for crimes committed after the
Croatian military operation Storm in August 1995.
The tribunal's jurisdiction extends to the time when armed clashes
were still going on in the former Yugoslavia, and former UN
secretary general Boutros Boutros Ghali reported on August 20, 1995
that Operation Storm was over and that military forces of the so-
called Republic of Serbian Krajina had left Croatia, excluding
eastern Slavonia, Misetic said.
Twenty-eight persons from the Gotovina indictment were listed as
killed after August 20, 1995, so that the tribunal was not competent
for those crimes, the lawyer said.
Asked about his credentials in view of the fact that the tribunal
does not recognise defence attorneys of indictees who are on the
run, which was confirmed by a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's
office on Friday, Misetic said he had submitted the request as an
"amicus curiae" in the hope that the tribunal would accept it.
"If the tribunal accepts the arguments for the withdrawal of the
indictment and returns it to the office of the prosecutor, that
would enable Carla del Ponte to question Gotovina in Zagreb," the
lawyer of the fugitive general said.
"If an amended indictment were issued after that, Gotovina would go
to The Hague as he has previously announced," he added.
Tribunal spokesman Jim Landale said on Friday afternoon he was not
aware that the request for the withdrawal of the indictment against
Gotovina had been filed, adding that it did not mean that the
request was not already in court procedure.
The tribunal indicted Gotovina in June 2001 for crimes against
humanity committed during and after Operation Storm in a war zone
under his command.
(hina) vm sb