Blaskic Review Request Revealed

Blaskic, the former commander of the Croatian Defence Council, HVO, in central Bosnia, was found guilty in 2000 of 19 counts of grave breaches of the Geneva conventions, violations of the laws or customs of war and crimes against humanity committed between May 1992 and January 1994. The specific crimes in question included murder and extensive destruction of property. He received a 45-year jail term.



In July 2004, however, the tribunal’s appeals chamber overturned most of the charges against him and slashed his sentence to nine years. He was still found guilty of using detainees to dig trenches and to act as human shields, and of failing to punish or report subordinates who unlawfully detained Muslim civilians.



Since Blaskic had spent more than eight years in detention by the time the appeals verdict was issued, he walked free.



The prosecution’s motion for review was originally filed in July 2005. The version that was made public on the order of the court this week has been heavily redacted. It describes new evidence which the prosecution says forms a “web of documents” revealing “a deliberate cover-up” in Blaskic’s case.



Amongst the more detailed allegations in the document is the claim that oral orders issued by Blaskic in relation to a notorious attack on the village of Ahmici on April 16, 1993, “included orders to commit crimes”. Homes were burned during the assault and over 100 Muslim inhabitants were massacred.



The talk of a “cover-up” in the newly released document includes an allegation that a police report relied upon by the appeals chamber when deciding on Blaskic’s case “had been manipulated and altered from the original”.



They claim that while the version of the document relied upon by the appeals chamber was 20-pages long, the original is in fact twice as long. And the version presented in court, they add, “is based in many respects on the assertions by [Blaskic’s] defence counsel Anto Nobilo”.



The prosecutors say they only became aware of some of the new facts after Blaskic’s appeal was complete. Some, they say, had been withheld from them during previous searches of documentary archives in Zagreb.



They also present two witnesses who they say are able to support their allegations. The witnesses’ names and details of their testimony have been kept confidential.



In order to be eligible for review, the prosecution has to show that there are “new facts” which have come to light within a year of the final judgement.



No date has yet been set for the appeals chamber to decide whether the prosecution’s request for review or reconsideration will be allowed or not.