HAGUE PROSECUTOR INSISTS THAT BLASKIC GIVE NAMES

THE HAGUE, May 25 (Hina) - "Give us names", are the words which the Hague Tribunal's prosecutor, Gregory Kehoe, has uttered innumerable times in recent days during the cross-examination of Bosnian Croat General Tihomir Blaskic, a commander of the former HVO (Croatian Defence Council) Central Bosnian Operational Zone. Blaskic is accused of crimes committed during the Croat-Moslem conflict in central Bosnia. He is also indicted for omissions in the investigation and punishment of perpetrators of the crimes as a commander. Who was the commander at the outpost in Kiseljak when a crime in Stupni Dol was committed in the end of October 1993, asked the prosecutor in his search for establishing the commanding chain of responsibility in order to see who of the superiors might be held accountable for the crime. I know that the commander of the 'Operational Zone 2' was Ivica Rajic, the defendant Blaskic said but he did not know who was Rajic's superior, as he was not in touch. The International War Criminal Tribunal in The Hague has accused Ivica Rajic of the slaughter of about 50 Moslems in Stupni Dol. Tell us (names). If you did not give orders to Rajic, who did, asked Kehoe. "I'm not sure. I don't know," Blaskic answered. The formal chain of commanders led via him (Blaskic) to the then deputy chief-of-staff, Milivoj Petkovic, and the HVO main headquarters' chief-of-staff, Slobodan Praljak, Blaskic explained adding that in the reality he had been isolated from the Kiseljak enclave so that the liaison went from Rajic directly to Mostar. Prosecutor Kehoe raised similar questions this month when he asked about the massacre of a hundred Moslems in the central Bosnian village of Ahmici in April 1993. If it was not you who planned the operation, who did so, he asked insisting on receiving the names of those persons. I have no knowledge of names, Blaskic said. Whether it was Bruno Stojic (defence minister), persisted the prosecutor. Kehoe wanted to know who made it impossible for Blaskic to get a list of names of the Ahmici crime perpetrators, first in 1993 and subsequently in 1994. He wondered whether Bruno Stojic, Slobodan Praljak or Milivoj Petkovic had received the list, but he did not get a concrete answer. Kehoe posed many questions about other war crimes suspects accused by the Hague Tribunal. Kehoe attempted to put, with assistance of Blaskic, the Vitez brigade with Commander Mario Cerkez at the site of the crime in Ahmici, in addition to military police. Cerkez is being tried in The Hague for war crimes as well. The Vitez Brigade was in Ahmici, wasn't it, Kehoe asked. There were conscripts who lived there, Blaskic replied. Did Dario Kordic advocate the separation of the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosna and its annexation to Croatia, the prosecutor asked. Maybe he did and maybe he did not. I did not write in my diaries what local politicians were talking, Blaskic said. Blaskic saw Kordic's political programme as a guarantee for the equality of the Croatian people in Bosnia-Herzegovina. After being faced with the TV footage in which Kordic threatened that there would be neither the State nor Moslems in case of attacks, Blaskic conceded that it was possible that he (Kordic) sometimes had conducted himself in an inappropriate way. The prosecutor also wanted to know what Kordic had known about Ahmici. During the cross-examination Blaskic was requested to identify yet another Hague prisoner, Vlado Santic. Kehoe asked whether on April 16, on the day of the Ahmici massacre, Vlado Santic, had come to the Vitez-based command. The indictment located Santic in Ahmici during the hours of the crime, whereas a defence witness, Slavko Marin, said at the Blaskic trial that he had seen Santic in the command during that morning. "I neither saw him (Santic) nor had any contact," Blaskic said. Did Slavko Marin told you that he had seen Santic on that day, the prosecutor asked in an attempt to check the authenticity of the former testimony. Kehoe demanded from Blaskic to identify, on an amateur video footage, Ante Sliskovic as the head of SIS (security and intelligence service) whom he ordered to launch an investigation into Ahmici. That investigation has never led to the punishment of the perpetrators of the crime. Although Blaskic's testimonies cannot be used as a piece of evidence in other cases, they can be used by prosecutors as statements with which they can challenge witnesses at other trials. (hina) ms