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ICTY provides big powers with alibi, says ex-spokeswoman

BELGRADE, May 27 (Hina) - Former International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) spokeswoman Florence Hartmann has told Serbian news agency Tanjug that the acquittals of Croatian General Ante Gotovina and Serbian General Momcilo Perisic were political moves whereby big powers are giving themselves an alibi to avoid responsibility for interventions around the world.

In an interview carried by Belgrade's media on Sunday, Hartmann said that with the acquittals the ICTY Appeals Chamber had created a legal precedent that would make the criminal prosecution of military commanders significantly more difficult or even impossible.

This shows that the ICTY, in the final stage of its work, has again been put under strict political control, Hartmann said, adding that the UN court had for years, with its brave interpretation of international criminal law, striven to reinforce the principle of culpability, creating legal obstacles which prevented states, including big powers, to wage wars without much concern that one day their leaders could be held to account.

It seems there are attempts to neutralise those legal restrictions so that the legal regulations that will remain should disturb them as little as possible, Hartmann said, adding that the ICTY had failed to encourage the restoration of confidence in the former Yugoslavia because there was still no will in the states in the region to recognise their own crimes and honestly deal with the past.

Hartmann called the trial against Croatian generals "legal regression," saying Gotovina's acquittal had reduced the crimes committed in the 1995 Operation Storm to isolated incidents.

As for Perisic's acquittal, she said the ICTY had made it clear that it did not wish to rend "the veil of (former Serbian President Slobodan) Milosevic's elaborate deception," conceived to convince the international community and the public that Serbia had not taken part in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia.

With such a position, the Hague tribunal absolved Serbia of responsibility for the wars and the crimes, she said, adding that before its closure, the ICTY had handed down verdicts that would disrupt the process of dealing with the past in Serbia as well as in Croatia's administration and public.

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