ICTY TO PRONOUNCE VERDICTS IN KORDIC-CERKEZ TRIAL ON MONDAY

THE HAGUE, Feb 25 (Hina) - Two months after the prosecutors demanded life imprisonment for Dario Kordic, former vice-president of the Croat Community of Herceg-Bosna, and Mario Cerkez, former commander of the Vitez Brigade, the war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia in The Hague will pronounce its verdicts on Monday. Kordic and Cerkez are accused of systematic persecution of Bosniaks during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the most important charge being their responsibility for the massacre of some 100 Bosniak civilians in the village of Ahmici on April 16, 1993. Both Kordic and Cerkez are charged individually and in line with commanding responsibility with crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and the law and customs of the war. The verdicts will be pronounced at 2 pm at the ICTY headquarters almost a year after the former commander of the Central Bosnia Operative Zone, Tihomir Blaskic, who was also charged with the Ahmici crime, was sentenced to 45 years in prison whereas a group of Bosnian Croats in the 'Kupreskic case', also accused of the Ahmici crime, was sentenced to prison sentences lasting from six to 25 years. In their closing statements in December last year, the prosecutors said the two Croats had exerted decisive influence on the policy and attacks which led to the ethnic cleansing of central Bosnia Muslims. The prosecutors supported their accusations with evidence from the HVO archive which the new Croatian authorities made available to the Hague prosecution last year. The trial of Kordic (aged 39) and Cerkez (41) started on April 12, 1999. Neither of them testified during the trial. The trial included 239 witnesses and 4,500 documents. Kordic and Cerkez surrendered to the Hague tribunal together with eight other Bosnian Croats on October 6, 1997. (hina) rml