ZAGREB, Dec 6 (Hina) - The appeals chamber will on Monday commence a debate on 73 new pieces of evidence which the defence team of Bosnian Croat Tihomir Blaskic proposed and the Hague-based UN tribunal's judges introduced in the trial
as they met criteria of extenuating or extricating evidence.
ZAGREB, Dec 6 (Hina) - The appeals chamber will on Monday commence a
debate on 73 new pieces of evidence which the defence team of
Bosnian Croat Tihomir Blaskic proposed and the Hague-based UN
tribunal's judges introduced in the trial as they met criteria of
extenuating or extricating evidence. #L#
The prosecutors will offer about 30 pieces of counter-evidence.
Blaskic's lawyers submitted the documents, which were not
available during the trial, to the appeals chamber on three
occasions in 2001 and 2002, asking for their entry into the evidence
on the basis of criteria of extenuating or extricating evidence.
Last year, the appeals chamber accepted 73 pieces of that evidence
describing them as relevant and credible and as such they could
indicate that the sentence in the Blaskic case was unfounded.
Appealing against the first-instance ruling, Blaskic's lawyers
insist on his acquittal as the new pieces of evidence, which were
retained by the former (HDZ) authorities in Croatia as well as the
ICTY's prosecutors, prove beyond any doubt that he is innocent.
On 3 March 2000, the trial chamber found Blaskic guilty and
sentenced him to 45 years in prison. Blaskic, who was the commander
of the Bosnian Croat troops (HVO) in central Bosnia, was accused of
war crimes committed in the Lasva Valley (central Bosnia) from the
mid-1992 to 1994. The gravest crime cited in his indictment was the
massacre of inhabitants in the Muslim-populated village of Ahmici
in April 1993.
Blaskic, who surrendered voluntarily to the tribunal, has been in
the ICTY's detention centre since 1 April 1996.
(hina) ms sb