BLASKIC'S DEFENCE ANNOUNCES NEW EVIDENCE AND WITNESSES

MOSTAR, March 3 (Hina) - Anto Nobilo, attorney of general Tihomir Blaskic who was sentenced to 45 years in prison by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, on Friday announced a possibility of finding new evidence and witnesses which would help that the verdict be annulled. Nobilo, however, stressed that evidence presented by the defence so far were sufficient for the annulment of the verdict. In today's telephone statement for the Croatian Radio Herceg- Bosna, Nobilo said it was unbelievable that Blaskic was sentenced for the command over all crimes committed in central Bosnia- Herzegovina, for crimes committed in Ahmici, setting houses on fire, persecution of Moslem civilians, maltreatment. "This is the harshest accusation and the Court did not provide enough reasons for it", Nobilo stressed. "The Court said that Blaskic gave commands for certain battle activities and that crimes had been committed within those activities, therefore it made a conclusion that Blaskic commanded those war crimes", Nobilo said. Commenting on the assessment of the ICTY on Croatia's involvement in the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Nobilo denied accusations about the presence of Croatian military units in Bosnia-Herzegovina. "This simply is not true. Croatian Army units were never in the Lasva River Valley and I believe that grounds for a decision on this issue were very tenuous and were not in line with the international law. We have good chances to annul it in the appeal procedure", Nobilo stressed. (hina) it jn