DEFENCE COMPLETES OPENING STATEMENT IN BLASKIC CASE

( Editorial: --> 8961 ) THE HAGUE, Sept 8 (Hina) - Tihomir Blaskic was a professional soldier, a man without ethnic prejudice or hate. He is not a violent person and may have been the wrong man to be assigned command, but this is not a crime, the former Bosnian Croat general's defence attorney said in his opening statement before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Defence attorney Hayman said that evidence would prove that Blaskic acted in the best possible way considering the war circumstances, and that he was not guilty as charged. In his opening statement which began on Monday, Hayman described the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) action conducted on April 16, 1993 during which numerous illegal acts were committed and Blaskic is now charged with. Amongst other things, Blaskic as the commander of the local HVO operative zone at the time has been charged with the massacre committed in Ahmici on April 16, 1993. The defence emphasised that Blaskic's orders were of a defensive nature and that he was unaware, and what is more that he did not order the murder of civilians in the village. The defence presented the division of command in the HVO ranks which indicate that there were two channels of command. Responding further to the charges brought against Blaskic, Hayman said that a huge explosion which occurred in Stari Vitez on April 18 was planned and ordered by the Vitez HVO commander Darko Kraljevic without Blaskic's knowledge. Hayman also stressed that it had not been determined from which direction shells had been fired at Zenica on April 19, when many civilians were killed. Blaskic did not in the April 16 actions order the capture of Bosnian Muslim civilians, said the defence. Hayman presented several orders issued by Blaskic regarding the protection of civilians and the ban to capture civilians or take them as hostages. The civilian authorities were responsible for civilian arrests and not Blaskic, Hayman said. In opposition to claims made by the prosecution, Croat civilians were suppressed and abused too, especially in Zenica from where 9,000 Croat civilians fled in the period between April and the end of 1993, the defence attorney said. Hayman said that the defence would prove that the HVO attack on Grbavica in September 1993, which was planned by Blaskic, was a justified military action and that Blaskic did not order the looting of Bosnian Muslim homes which occurred once the army had retreated. The defence then presented Blaskic's orders about the strict ban to burn houses and against looting incidents. Also presented was Blaskic's orders to protect sacral property and buildings, including the property of citizens who had vacated their homes. Responding to charges that Blaskic implemented the politics of ethnic cleansing, Hayman said that more Croats had fled from central Bosnia than did Bosnian Muslim citizens. In conclusion, the defence attorney turned to the question of an international conflict or rather, the relations between Croatia and B-H. Croatia was allied to B-H during the war against the Serbs and prevented plans by the Yugoslav Peoples' Army (JNA) to close the "circle" in southern B-H in 1992, intending to besiege and isolate the rest of B-H controlled by the Bosnian Muslims and the Croats, said Hayman. Croatia enabled the Muslim-dominated B-H Army to bring in arms via its southern region of Dalmatia and the territory controlled by the HVO. Croatia also allowed Bosnian units to conduct training in Croatia. Without Croatia's aid the B-H Army would have collapsed at the beginning of the war, added Hayman. (Hina) sp/jn mbr 081803 MET sep 98