PROSECUTOR: BLASKIC INVESTIGATED AHMICI ONLY AFTER WORLD PRESSURE

THE HAGUE, May 20 (Hina) - Addressing the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the trial of Bosnian Croat war crimes suspect Tihomir Blaskic, prosecutor Gregory Kehoe on Thursday spoke about the defendant's investigation into a 1993 Muslim massacre in central Bosnia. General Blaskic did not carry out the investigation into the Ahmici village massacre conscientiously and on time, but only under strong international community pressure, Kehoe told The Hague-based tribunal. Kehoe said that Blaskic, accused of war crimes his units committed during the Croat-Muslim 1993 conflict in central Bosnia, ordered the investigation on May 10, 1993, three and a half weeks after the crime, and only after a United Nations representative went to Ahmici, after British commander Bob Stewart remarked nothing had been done about the investigation, after meeting European Community observers, etc. The defendant told the tribunal in February and March that he gave a word order for an investigation on April 24, two days after finding out about the murder of some 100 Muslims in Ahmici from Lt. Col. Stewart. A written order was issued subsequently, after the word order yielded no results. Prior to that, Blaskic had requested that the command combine all information received on civilians killed in Ahmici on April 16, 1993, and that an extant joint Croat-Muslim commission carry out the investigation. Kehoe said the only evidence to Blaskic's word order of April 24 was the defendant's testimony, pointing out the order had not been mentioned at all during the testimony of Blaskic's closest assistant, Slavko Marin. The defendant said the evidence were his personal war diary and the diary of the security assistant, but added that both were unavailable. He said he received the first data on the killed civilians in late April, based on his initial order. Panel of judges president Claude Jorda asked why the defendant had not referred to his word order in the written one of May 10. The prosecutor wanted to know whether Blaskic had papers indicating that he had clearly requested via his assistant Franjo Nakic that the joint Croat-Muslim commission investigate the Ahmici massacre. "I did not issue written orders to communicate with my associates," Blaskic said, and explained that was the case only in extraordinary circumstances. Prosecutor Kehoe said that Blaskic's report to Dario Kordic, Bruno Stojic, and Milivoj Petkovic, three Bosnian Croat leaders, issued on April 24 and referring to a talk with Lt. Col. Stewart, does not indicate that Blaskic thought an Ahmici investigation was necessary, and that it brings not even one mention on Blaskic's part showing his concern for the victims. Over the past couple of days, Blaskic claimed the report was incomplete, but was unable to explain the reason. Kehoe persisted in asking why the defendant did not seek an explanation of what had taken place in Ahmici from the commander of the fourth military police battalion commander Pasko Ljubicic, suspected of being behind the massacre. "To ask them to carry an investigation over themselves would definitely not be serious," Blaskic said. He said he did not know who ordered that the bodies of the Ahmici massacre victims be collected several days after the massacre, as recorded by foreign reporters. (hina) ha jn