THE HAGUE, July 29 (Hina) - Tihomir Blaskic can accept the criminal liability for acts he committed and not for having held high post in central Bosnia, Bosnian Croat General Blaskic's defence attorneys told the Trial Chamber at the
International War Crimes Tribunal (ICTY) on Thursday.
THE HAGUE, July 29 (Hina) - Tihomir Blaskic can accept the criminal
liability for acts he committed and not for having held high post in
central Bosnia, Bosnian Croat General Blaskic's defence attorneys
told the Trial Chamber at the International War Crimes Tribunal
(ICTY) on Thursday. #L#
Don't let him be tried as a symbol... and because he had a rank and
high post.. Don't let one injustice be redressed by another one,
said Anto Nobilo in response to the prosecution's closing speech
which had political overtones.
In the past three days prosecutors described Blaskic, a former
commander of the Croat Defence Council (HVO) Central Bosnian
Operative Zone, as the chief instrument in the Lasva river valley
for implementing Croatia's President's ideas about annexing
ethnically cleansed parts of Bosnia to Croatia.
Blaskic's other defence counsellor, American Rusell Hayman,
recalled that during two-year-long trial against Blaskic, the
prosecutor did not spend one minute for the issue of responsibility
for crimes in the Lasva valley of other commanding chains whose
existence had undoubtedly been proved.
General Blaskic does not want to shun his responsibility where he
had, but he does not want to assume somebody else's responsibility
...it would be too much to ask from anybody, Hayman said.
In central Bosnia there were two and sometimes three parallel
commanding chains, the defence said.
According to the defence, the same troops, particularly, those ones
who left fingerprints on the gravest crimes in the Lasva valley,
were commanded, besides by Blaskic, also by the military leadership
in Mostar which included the defence department's head, Bruno
Stojic, the headquarters' chief-of-staff, Milivoj Petkovic as well
as that powerful political leadership with leaders of Herzeg-
Bosnia, Dario Kordic and Mate Boban.
Kordic, who is being tried for the same crimes on the floor above
Blaskic's courtroom, does not exist in the prosecution's story,
Nobilo added.
It can be obviously seen from a series of documents that Dario
Kordic had factual influence over military units. It is evident
that informal but powerful commanding chains existed... Kordic
exerted influence on those units whose commanding chain ended in
Mostar, Blaskic's defence team said.
In essence there were clandestine political power-wielders in the
Croat Community of Herzeg-Bosnia (HZ HB) who held no formal
military responsibility, whereas the Blaskic case showed the
opposite situation, the defence maintained.
Using video-footage of witnesses and schemes of parallel
commanding chains in the HVO, in and effective manner, the defence
lawyers summed up their thesis that Blaskic had not commanded or had
held limited authority, to a great extent, in issuing orders to or
punishing troops for special purpose, like Vitezovi (Knights),
military policemen and SIS.
The real commanding power of Blaskic was additionally restricted
not only by the fact that he had an untrained army but also by that
local civilian authorities, besides political power-wielders,
circumvented him regarding military issues so that he had to cope
with the influence of local warlords such as Darko Kraljevic or
Zarko Andric Zuti whose words were often law in the Lasva valley,
they said.
(hina) ms