I MAY HAVE HAD TOO MUCH TRUST -- SAYS BLASKIC

THE HAGUE, May 21 (Hina) - The question why General Tihomir Blaskic, even after he had become commissioner of the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) central headquarters, did not insist on obtaining the final report on crimes in Ahmici, drafted by the Herzeg-Bosnian security services, and which, as he said earlier in the trial, included the names of the perpetrators, was the focus of a cross examination of the former Operative Zone Central Bosnia before the International Criminal Tribunal in the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Friday. There is something hard to swallow here, judge Claude Jorda said. Somebody told you the document was top secret and you said: that's okay... You were number one in HVO and you were satisfied that you were told you did not have access, the president of the trial chamber said. "Under the circumstances I did what I could," Blaskic said in his defence. He said he was informed in September of 1993 by an assistant for the intelligence and security service SIS, Anto Sliskovic, that he could not obtain the file with the results of the investigation into the massacre of a hundred Moslems in Ahmici (central Bosnia) in April 1993, as it had been forwarded to the SIS administration in Mostar. Blaskic thought the file had been forwarded over him in hierarchy because the SIS administration would continue the process. He had requested the file in 1994 again, but it had been "blocked", as he said. Blaskic is indicted also for omissions in the investigation and punishment of perpetrators of the crimes as a commander, and prosecutors have exerted effort to prove this element of the indictment the most. Who prevented you from getting the file, prosecutor Gregory Kehoe asked Blaskic on Thursday night. "He (Sliskovic) told me the file was forwarded to Mostar into the jurisdiction of the SIS administration... His superiors decided I don't get the file," he said. - Who were his superiors? "First was the SIS administration chief, but who decided, I don't know". - To whom was the file handed? "I don't know the names," Blaskic said. - Did you ask for the name of the person who received it?, Kehoe asked. "I did not ask for a name". - Did you ask Sliskovic for the names of the perpetrators? Did you contact anyone in the SIS to tell you the names of the perpetrators so you could remove them from the HVO, Kehoe asked. "I was not in the position to pressurise my superiors," Blaskic said. Asked if, when he gave himself up to the Tribunal, he thought his defence lawyers would have a hard time without this file, Blaskic said "It is hard to recall what I thought at the time... I expected difficulties, but I never expected these kind of difficulties for my attorneys to get hold of the documents. I may have had too much faith," Blaskic said. Documents were also lacking regarding the "Pauk" operation led by Blaskic in the summer of 1994. He said he did not know who had removed the files. (hina) lml