In a March 7 deposition, Miroslav Separovic and Goran Mikulicic said they had been preparing for the trial for two years, since the 12 March 2004 arraignment, while preparations for the Gotovina trial had not even begun because the UN court had not appointed his lawyers yet.
Gotovina, Cermak and Markac are charged with war crimes committed against Croatian Serbs during and after the 1995 Operation Storm.
The Prosecutor's Office motion to amend the indictment and join the cases breaches the tribunal's rules of procedure and evidence, infringes the rights of the defence, and is contrary to the accepted standards for joinders, Cermak's attorneys Cedo Prodanovic and Jadranka Slokovic said in their deposition. They underlined that the Prosecutor's Office, with its dual motion, "prejudges" the decision on amendments to the indictment which "significantly alter its content and could affect the judgement".
The amendments are related to a new way of involvement in the "joint criminal enterprise," which in Cermak's case is described as promoting, instigating, facilitating, encouraging and/or condoning the perpetration of violent acts against Serbs and creating a climate of fear among the Serbs who stayed behind.
The amendments also introduce a new way of committing a crime for Cermak, which is defined as participation in the provision of false, incomplete or misleading information on committed crimes.
Cermak's lawyers said the proposed joinder of the cases was contrary to the accepted standards for joining cases because the joint indictment does not refer to simultaneous and joint action.
They said there existed significant differences regarding the command responsibility of the accused and their participation in the events of which they were accused, and also pointed to a possible conflict of interest of the defendants.
After comparing the indictments, Markac's lawyers said there existed no direct and significant connection, notably between Markac and Gotovina, and that they were counting on calling Gotovina as a defence witness.
Both defence teams argumented their opposition with decisions by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the European Court of Human Rights in similar cases.