ZAGREB, May 24 (Hina) - Tihomir Blaskic's defence attorney, Anto Nobilo, on Wednesday said the recently found documents which allegedly indicated who were perpetrators of the 1993 crime in the central Bosnian village of Ahmici, could
help the defence's appeal against the ICTY's sentence to Blaskic. The Hague-based ICTY (International War Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia) sentenced a former commander of Bosnian Croat units in central Bosnia, General Tihomir Blaskic, to 45 years' imprisonment, for crimes committed in his zone of responsibility, including the murder of 116 civilians in Ahmici. The Croatian Radio quoted the lawyer Nobilo as saying that the entire documentation the defence team possesses now could be sufficient to prove that there were two parallel chains of commanding and that the other commanding chain had been concretely involved in the Ahmici crime so that something
ZAGREB, May 24 (Hina) - Tihomir Blaskic's defence attorney, Anto
Nobilo, on Wednesday said the recently found documents which
allegedly indicated who were perpetrators of the 1993 crime in the
central Bosnian village of Ahmici, could help the defence's appeal
against the ICTY's sentence to Blaskic.
The Hague-based ICTY (International War Criminal Tribunal for
former Yugoslavia) sentenced a former commander of Bosnian Croat
units in central Bosnia, General Tihomir Blaskic, to 45 years'
imprisonment, for crimes committed in his zone of responsibility,
including the murder of 116 civilians in Ahmici.
The Croatian Radio quoted the lawyer Nobilo as saying that the
entire documentation the defence team possesses now could be
sufficient to prove that there were two parallel chains of
commanding and that the other commanding chain had been concretely
involved in the Ahmici crime so that something could have happened
without Blaskic's knowledge.
Asked whether those documents, considering the fact that Gen.
Blaskic was the commander of the Central Bosnia Operative Zone,
could help to free Blaskic of all accusations, Nobilo answered they
could not do so as the recently revealed documents referred only to
the Ahmici case, namely the gravest count in Blaskic's indictment.
In case it is proved that Blaskic cannot be held liable for the
Ahmici murder, his sentence will be drastically cut, Nobilo said.
"If we succeed in exempting him of the responsibility for crimes in
Ahmici, we shall make the biggest job, as I believe that it
represents up to 70 percent of the sentence," he added.
Nobilo said their appeal would be concentrated on four points: to
exempt Blaskic of the liability for Ahmici, of the liability for
what happened in the area of Kiseljak that had been territorially
separated from Blaskic's zone, to free him of the responsibility
for the conflict in Busovaca as at that time Blaskic was in Kiseljak
which was cut off of the other central Bosnian town, and to exempt
him of the responsibility for the international conflict.
(hina) jn ms