THE HAGUE, 19 Jan (Hina) - The Hague-based Tribunal's Prosecution on Wednesday assessed that the composition of the legal representation of Croatia's Government in The Hague had rendered it more difficult for the parties to solve
problems in the cooperation. I think the Chief Prosecutor regrets that the representation of the Croatian Government includes nobody from Croatia and this underlines difficulties which we face in defining stands of the Croatian Government, said a spokesman for the Prosecution, Paul Risley, at a regular news conference, answering questions about the relations between Zagreb and the International War Crimes for former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Croatia is represented by U.S. lawyers David Rivkin and Lee Casey before the Hague-based ICTY. Last Thursday the two attorneys expounded before the trial chamber in the Kordic-Cerkez case why Croatia did not follow binding orders of
THE HAGUE, 19 Jan (Hina) - The Hague-based Tribunal's Prosecution
on Wednesday assessed that the composition of the legal
representation of Croatia's Government in The Hague had rendered it
more difficult for the parties to solve problems in the
cooperation.
I think the Chief Prosecutor regrets that the representation of the
Croatian Government includes nobody from Croatia and this
underlines difficulties which we face in defining stands of the
Croatian Government, said a spokesman for the Prosecution, Paul
Risley, at a regular news conference, answering questions about the
relations between Zagreb and the International War Crimes for
former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Croatia is represented by U.S. lawyers David Rivkin and Lee Casey
before the Hague-based ICTY.
Last Thursday the two attorneys expounded before the trial chamber
in the Kordic-Cerkez case why Croatia did not follow binding orders
of the Tribunal and why it did not meet requests of the Prosecution
about the production of evidence material in that case.
At that session prosecutors claimed that what Croatia had given to
the Tribunal in the recent years was just a small box of documents in
the case of Bosnian Croat Blaskic and those papers were generally
irrelevant, according to the prosecutors.
Croatia had produced 31 documents in the Kordic case, but none was
given voluntarily. Zagreb had to produce them only because it could
not deny their existence after General Janko Bobetko precisely
identified them in his book, the prosecutors said adding that
Croatia also submitted three documents in the Cerkez case.
While prosecutor Kennet Scott accused Croatia of systematic
obstruction the work of the ICTY, the two U.S. lawyers who represent
Croatia asserted that the country had met orders of the Tribunal,
but the problem had been caused by a former prosecutor Arbour, as
Casey said, who asked more than she had the right. Croatia's
representatives added that objections of the Prosecution did not
belong to a sphere of the "legal stand."
(hina) mm ms