SAKIC TRIAL: DEFENCE SEEKS ACQUITTAL

ZAGREB, Sept 28 (Hina) - Attorney Branko Seric on Tuesday requested the Zagreb County Court panel of judges to acquit his client Dinko Sakic, the commander of the Ustashi concentration camp of Jasenovac, indicted for war crime against the civilian population. The defence claims the prosecution has failed to prove Sakic's guilt. #L# "Sakic can be criticised and morally condemned for his ideological affiliation, but he cannot be not convicted for that. We are not trying a man for his ideas, but for what he has done", said Seric requesting that the panel of judges study the court file in an objective and unbiased manner and acquit Sakic. "This is the first such case in the Croatian court practice. You have the honour and responsibility, but don't play God", Seric warned. Seric believes the subject matter of the trial is not to answer what the Jasenovac camp was, but to establish the individual responsibility of his client for acts he is charged with. "If the court has any doubts about the accusations against the defendant, it must acquit him", he stressed. Seric recalled that as a 13-year-old boy, Sakic had been expelled from his high school and his hometown of Slavonski Brod, which determined his life path as a Croat nationalist. "Upon joining the Ustashi movement, Sakic pledged to fight for the creation of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), and he pledged his unreserved obedience to Ante Pavelic, who became the absolute master of Sakic's life and death", Seric said. "The NDH had the attributes of a state. It had authorities, laws, bodies, and territory, on which camps were established. Defendant Sakic found himself in that system and he had to carry out orders in the system of subordination", Seric said, adding his client only headed and was not the "actual commander" of the camp. He then quoted the curator of the Jasenovac museum, Jelka Smreka, who said that Sakic had only been a puppet. Sakic cannot be convicted only because of the fact that he was the camp's head, Seric said. He expressed doubt regarding the authenticity of witness statements, adding they contradicted each other. Commenting on the accusation that Sakic was guilty of hard physical labour, and the starvation and torture of prisoners, Seric cited statements by some witnesses saying that "moreover, Sakic made the camp regime less severe". Seric also refuted the accusation that during Sakic's command of the camp sick prisoners and those unfit for work were executed. According to Seric, the claim by witness Milos Despot that Sakic shot dead a prisoner who had stolen a corn cob, contradicts the statement by witness Zdenko Schwartz, from Israel, who accused Ljubo Milos of that murder. Commenting on the accusation that Sakic was guilty of the death of an unknown number of prisoners, who were killed in the so-called "hunting game" in which Sakic also participated by shooting at inmates from the window of the command building, Seric said no witness but Schwartz mentioned that incident. Speaking about the material evidence, Seric said the documents of the National Commission for Establishing Crimes of the Occupying Forces and Their Collaborators could not be treated as evidence because the Commission was a political body governed by political goals. Statements by expert witnesses have helped only in creating the overall picture, but not in proving Sakic's guilt, he said. He added that many public figures in Croatia and abroad had equalised Sakic's objective responsibility with that of the Croatian state, and attempts to differentiate between those two kinds of responsibility were declared the continuation of the fascist tradition. "We, the defenders, have also been criticised that we identify ourselves with the client, although we only perform our duties professionally", said Seric, commenting on some media claims which, he said, denied legitimacy to the court proceedings due to the fact that Sakic had not been indicted for genocide. The Sakic trial continues on Wednesday, when the defendant will present his closing argument. (hina) jn rml