THE HAGUE, Dec 16 (Hina) - Defence counsel for Bosnian Croat general Tihomir Blaskic called on the appeals chamber of the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Tuesday to decide in favour of their client because the trial chamber, by
denying crucial evidence and through procedural omissions, had compromised the trial and brought into question the fairness of a verdict.
THE HAGUE, Dec 16 (Hina) - Defence counsel for Bosnian Croat general
Tihomir Blaskic called on the appeals chamber of the UN war crimes
tribunal in The Hague on Tuesday to decide in favour of their client
because the trial chamber, by denying crucial evidence and through
procedural omissions, had compromised the trial and brought into
question the fairness of a verdict. #L#
Defence attorney Russel Hayman told the five-judge bench that his
client's rights could only be protected through a retrial or an
acquittal.
The US lawyer said that the trial had been contaminated in view of
the fact that the prosecution did not provide the defence with all
acquitting material despite a statutory obligation to do so and
despite specific orders by the trial chamber.
Hayman added that this opened the possibility of judges making
erroneous conclusions in the judgement such as that Blaskic was
responsible and had control of all units in central Bosnia,
including those that committed crimes.
The lawyer went on to say that the late Croatian president Franjo
Tudjman had also withheld evidence in order to protect himself and
his minions. This was done not only by secret services of Croatia
but also by those of Bosnia-Herzegovina which denied access to the
archives of the Bosnian army, he added.
Blaskic was found guilty because of lack of that evidence, Hayman
underlined.
Contrasting the new evidence that had been introduced in the appeal
proceedings and the testimony of six new witnesses presented last
week with the conclusions of the verdict handed down in March 2000,
Hayman explained why the trial chamber had arrived at wrong
conclusions on the basis of which Blaskic was given a single
sentence of 45 years' imprisonment.
Wrong conclusions were made about Blaskic's responsibility both
for the crimes in the Vitez area, including the slaughter of over a
hundred Muslims in the village of Ahmici on April 16, 1993, and for
the crimes committed in 1993 in the Busovaca and Kiseljak areas,
because he had no influence there because he was isolated and other
people had power, he said.
The evidence on which the prosecution based Blaskic's
responsibility for Ahmici ingloriously failed, the lawyer said,
listing documents which had been concealed by Croatian secret
services until 2000 and which showed that the former vice-president
of the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna, Dario Kordic, and his
associates Ignac Kostroman, Anto Sliskovic, Pasko Ljubicic and
Vlado Cosic were responsible for the crimes in the village.
The HVO (Bosnian Croat Defence Council) military police unit that
committed the crimes received an order from these men in the early
morning hours of April 16, 1993, he said.
Listing the steps that Blaskic had taken in order to find out and
punish the perpetrators, Hayman said that his client, as former
commander of the Central Bosnia Operations Zone, had made every
effort to identify and punish the perpetrators and was the only one
to condemn the crimes.
Blaskic is not criminally responsible for the cover-up that was
carried out by the SIS (Security Information Service) and Mostar,
Hayman said.
(hina) vm sb