THE HAGUE, Oct 28 (Hina) - Wrapping up their closing arguments, prosecutors with the UN war crimes tribunal at The Hague on Monday demanded a 35-year imprisonment for Mladen Naletilic aka Tuta and a 25-year sentence for Vinko
Martinovic aka Stela, both Bosnian Croats accused of crimes committed in southern Bosnia-Herzegovina.
THE HAGUE, Oct 28 (Hina) - Wrapping up their closing arguments,
prosecutors with the UN war crimes tribunal at The Hague on Monday
demanded a 35-year imprisonment for Mladen Naletilic aka Tuta and a
25-year sentence for Vinko Martinovic aka Stela, both Bosnian
Croats accused of crimes committed in southern Bosnia-Herzegovina.
#L#
Kenneth Scott said the prosecution had managed to prove the
responsibility of Naletilic, former commander of the so-called
Convicts Battalion, and Martinovic, former commander of one of the
battalion's units, and demanded they be found guilty on all
counts.
The trial against the two Bosnian Croats began in September last
year.
The defence will deliver its closing arguments tomorrow.
The defendants listened to the prosecution's proposed sentences
without visible reactions. During the closing arguments, Naletilic
smiled ironically on several occasions.
The prosecutors linked the crimes in question with former Croatian
and Yugoslav Presidents Franjo Tudjman and Slobodan Milosevic
respectively.
Without people like Tuta and Stela as senior commanders on the
ground, people like Milosevic and Tudjman would not have been able
to commit war crimes, said Scott.
The prosecutors also referred to witnesses and evidence concerning
the international character of the 1993 Muslim-Croat conflict in
Bosnia-Herzegovina. Transcripts of conversations between the late
Tudjman and his close associates played a key role.
Those transcripts clearly indicate that Tudjman received daily
reports on developments in Bosnia, and that he planned to take
positions in the Herzegovina region and the borders of Herzeg-
Bosna, said Scott.
The transcripts show that Tudjman's Croatian Democratic Union
(HDZ) party in Zagreb had absolute control over Herzeg-Bosna and
the Croat Defence Council (HVO), Scott said, adding that Croatia
was directly implicated in the Bosnian conflict having appointed
its officers to the HVO leadership and sent its units to Herzegovina
under the guise of volunteers
Naletilic and Martinovic are accused in line with command and
personal responsibility for crimes against humanity, grave
breaches of the Geneva conventions and violations of the laws and
customs of war, committed in Mostar and Jablanica in 1993. At the
time, Naletilic commanded the Convicts' Battalion and Martinovic
its anti-terrorist unit "Vinko Skrobo".
(hina) ha sb