THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Dec 10 (Hina) - A Muslim from the central Bosnian town of Busovaca, who is one of the protected witnesses in the appeals hearing in the Blaskic case, said on Wednesday that it was Dario Kordic, the vice-president of
the then Croat community of Herzeg-Bosnia, who had the full military and civil control over the area of Busovaca, while the former commander of the Central Bosnia Operations Zone, General Tihomir Blaskic, had no real influence at all.
THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Dec 10 (Hina) - A Muslim from the central Bosnian
town of Busovaca, who is one of the protected witnesses in the
appeals hearing in the Blaskic case, said on Wednesday that it was
Dario Kordic, the vice-president of the then Croat community of
Herzeg-Bosnia, who had the full military and civil control over the
area of Busovaca, while the former commander of the Central Bosnia
Operations Zone, General Tihomir Blaskic, had no real influence at
all. #L#
The witness BA-4, who was detained in the Croat-run Kaonik camp
after Croat forces set his house on fire in 1993, told the UN war
crimes tribunal (ICTY) Appeals Chamber that Dario Kordic "had
absolute military and political authority" in Busovaca.
Asked by Blaskic's lawyer, Anto Nobilo, what Tihomir Blaskic had
presented in Busovaca during the war, the witness replied
"absolutely nothing".
All kinds of Bosnian Croat Defence Council (HVO) units, including
crack forces and military police, were under direct control of Anto
Sliskovic (a high-ranking agent of the then Security and
Intelligence Service known as SIS) and Dario Kordic, the witness
said describing the two men as villains and responsible for the
expulsion of the local Muslim population.
He went on to say that the troops controlled by Sliskovic and Kordic
had toured Busovaca at night and harassed Muslims in the town.
The witness testified that on one occasion he had heard Kaonik camp
administrator Zlatko Aleksovski saying he had to refuse the
transfer of camp inmates as there was no signature of either Kordic
or Sliskovic on the written order.
He added that HVO troops from Busovaca beat him while he was
imprisoned, while troops from Vitez, where Blaskic's headquarters
were located, fairly treated him.
The U.N. tribunal's appeals chamber is holding a two-week hearing
on 73 new pieces of evidence which the defence found after the
initial trial and which it claims will change the allegations in the
verdict.
Blaskic was found guilty on 3 March 2000 and sentenced to 45 years in
jail for war crimes committed in the Lasva Valley from mid-1992 to
1994, the gravest of which was the April 1993 slaughter of some 100
Muslims in the village of Ahmici. He has been in detention since 1
April 1996.
(hina) ms sb