Croatian Generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac

Like many throughout the world I sat for hours watching the live streaming of the Croatian generals’ Appeal hearing in the ICTY, Monday 14 May. Had I not heard the Appellants’ defence arguments first, had I tuned in at the point of prosecution’s arguments I could have easily concluded that the reason Operation Storm occurred in August 1995 was to expel Serbs from Croatia.

The prosecution’s view is that Operation Storm was not a military offensive (to liberate Serb occupied territory) that brought about undesired consequences, but an attack aimed at deporting the Serb civilian population out of Croatia. They said some 20,000 Serbs left Krajina due to fear from shelling by the Croatian Army. They argued that the transcripts from Croatian leadership meeting at Brijuni (July 31, 1995) and the events when Croatian army targeted whole towns for shelling where there were both civilian and military targets supported the prosecutions claim of joint criminal enterprise to drive Serbs out.

When asked by Presiding Judge Theodor Meron about the defence claim that there had been no civilian casualties during the shelling, the prosecution said that there was no need to prove that there had been civilian casualties because several witnesses said during the trial that they had seen dead bodies and wounded people in the streets of Knin.

The problem with these cited witness statements is that they had not been tested in court, nor had the credibility of the witnesses been tested; the Trial Chamber simply accepted as fact statements of witnesses who merely said that they saw some bodies lying on the streets of Knin, without proving that those bodies were in fact dead people and that, if they were dead, they were killed by the shelling… Gotovina’s defence attorney Luka Misetic brought the court’s attention to the fact that at no time, not even till today – 18 years after Operation Storm – had anybody come forth saying that a person they knew or was a family member had been killed in the shelling of Knin. Simply there were no civilian casualties from that shelling.

The prosecution pressed on with its case, saying that even if the Appeals Chamber should decide that Croatian artillery attacks during Operation Storm in the summer of 1995 were not illegal, it should rule that Croatian army did set out to expel Serbs from Krajina under joint criminal enterprise that had that goal.

Gotovina’s defence attorney Greg Kehoe challenged the use of t so-called “200-metre rule” by the Trial Chamber (2011) to determine whether artillery shells were aimed at military or civilian targets. The Trial Chamber had ruled that any shells falling more that 200 metres from a military target were aimed at civilians and Kehoe said that the Trial Chamber had introduced this rule after the prosecution failed to prove civilians were targeted.

Gotovina’s defence team sought the quashing of his convictions.

There’s no dispute that shelling was legal, it was a military operation to liberate occupied territory – legal operation whichever way one looks at it.

General Mladen Markac defence attorney John Jones said that a conclusion on the existence of a joint criminal enterprise aimed at the persecution of the Serb population could not be drawn from the transcripts of the Brijuni meeting. He said that all conclusions from the trial chamber’s verdict about the persecution of civilians were based on the conclusion on the illegal shelling, stressing that if there had been no illegal shelling, there had not been a joint criminal enterprise either.

The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) said on Monday, after a day-long appeal hearing, that a verdict would be handed down soon, adding the the key point would be the reasons for the departure of the Serb population from the territory which was under their control until the 1995 Operation Storm.

General Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac were given the opportunity to address the court themselves and this is what they said:

Gotovina spoke in the French language:  “During my entire military career, I endeavoured to perform my duties dignifiedly and honourably, and have always given my all as a commander and soldier in order to protect civilians. As a commander I am proud of the results of the Operation Storm. I’m proud not only because we won but because the damage to the civilians and their homes was minimal. As a man I very much regret every lost life and damaged property. I cannot, however, be responsible for that which others have done or omitted to do while I was away in Bosnia.

Even to this day I am convinced that I have fulfilled my duties in the best possible way. We were in a battle for life and death with the enemy, fought so we could liberate our country. We tried hard to maximally protect the lives of soldiers and civilians. If I made mistakes, such as refusing to give myself up to the court, I am the first to regret that. I am not saying that I am without sin, but I hope I will not be judged for not being perfect. But, even if you conclude that I had made wrong decisions you will not establish that I had ever wanted or agreed to that any soldier or civilian should be killed because he/she was a Serb or belonged to some other national group. 

I am conscious of and content that my actions during Operation Storm were correct and my commands are witness to that fact. Therefore, I do not seek any favours from you, nor do I ask you to do anything other than what my defence has asked of you in my name. I live with the feeling of satisfaction that my actions were in harmony with the actions of an honest and diligent military officer who had given his all in hard circumstances.

If this Chamber could simply examine my actions in that context, I will be content and would not ask anything else”.

Markac spoke in the Croatian language: “I am surprised at the statements made about Storm that were not based on facts. Moved by the attempts to reshape the facts from the Homeland war I want to say that I am not a member of a joint criminal enterprise nor am I a war criminal. I have heard about existence of a joint criminal enterprise for the first time during these proceedings. Neither the representatives of the European Union or anyone from Croatia had shown me that joint criminal enterprise exists. Never had anybody shown me illegal actions by members of the special police MUP, whose professionalism makes me especially proud. I have not committed nor hidden any crime because that is not my way of viewing life. I am a police-military officer who has performed the tasks given to him by the Minister of internal affairs of Croatia responsibly. My job was to defend and liberate illegitimately occupied Croatia.”

Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Luka Misetic Photo: Darko Tomas/Cropix

Reblogged from Misetic Law blogspot

http://miseticlaw.blogspot.com.au

8 November 2012, by Luka Misetic

The European Stability Initiative has recently broadcast a film about General Gotovina entitled, “Twilight of Heroes.”  Admittedly, I have not been able to view the entire film because it is not yet available for viewing in the United States.  Nevertheless, I was able to review the nine minute preview clip on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GcjSsc_1A7s).  I was stunned by the level of factual inaccuracy in this documentary, and viewers should be warned that the factual claims in this film are demonstrably false.

At the outset, the film shows Carla Del Ponte speaking about Operation Storm, which was led by General Gotovina.  Del Ponte claims:  “They thought if you are doing a legitimate war, you must not consider if crimes are committed, war crimes or crimes against humanity.  It is collateral damage.  But that is why the International Tribunal was created.  A war is not the permission for the commission of crimes.”

One minute later, the film’s voiceover speaker ominously claims, “Prosecutors suspected that murders and intimidations of Serb civilians during Operation Storm were not isolated incidents, but the result of a policy to ethnically cleanse these parts of Croatia of their Serb population. A criminal conspiracy planned and implemented by Croatia’s leaders.”

What the filmakers fail to tell the viewer (at least in the preview clip) is that the Trial Chamber in its Judgement rejected Del Ponte’s claims that the Croatian leadership “did not consider if crimes were being committed against Serbs, war crimes or crimes against humanity.”  Furthermore, the Trial Chamber rejected the Prosecution’s claim that Croatia’s leaders had planned and implemented a criminal conspiracy to allow murders and intimidations of Serbs in order to pursue a policy of ethnic cleansing.  As I noted in one of my earlier posts, the Trial Chamber found:

“The Trial Chamber finds that the common objective did not amount to, or involve the commission of the crimes of persecution (disappearances, wanton destruction, plunder, murder, inhumane acts, cruel treatment, and unlawful detentions), destruction, plunder, murder, inhumane acts, and cruel treatment.”(Judgement, paragraph 2321);

Rather, the evidence includes several examples of meetings and statements (see for example D409, P470, and D1451), indicating that the leadership, including Tudjman, disapproved of the destruction of property. Based on the foregoing, the Trial Chamber does not find that destruction and plunder were within the purpose of the joint criminal enterprise.” (Judgement, paragraph 2313);

In light of the testimony of expert Albiston, the Trial Chamber considers that the insufficient response by the Croatian law enforcement authorities and judiciary can to some extent be explained by the abovementioned obstacles they faced and their need to perform other duties in August and September 1995. In conclusion, while the evidence indicates incidents of purposeful hindrance of certain investigations, the Trial Chamber cannot positively establish that the Croatian authorities had a policy of non-investigation of crimes committed against Krajina Serbs during and following Operation Storm in the Indictment area.”(Judgement, paragraph 2203).

The Trial Chamber thus established that the Croatian leadership (1) did not have a policy to allow crimes like murder and intimidation to be committed against Serbs, and (2) did not have a policy of non-investigation of crimes committed against Serbs.

Accordingly, two things were very clear to me within the first five minutes of viewing the preview clip:  (1)  Carla Del Ponte continues to mislead the international public about what the ICTY Trial Chamber concluded, and (2)  the producers of this film did not bother to read the Trial Judgement or interview anyone who had actually read the Trial Judgement.

If the filmakers don’t have time to read the Trial Judgement before making a film about Gotovina, then I don’t have the time to watch their film.

Perhaps in the future the filmakers would be wise to interview the lawyers for the Accused before broadcasting their films.

Relayed Post: http://inavukic.com/2012/11/13/gerald-knaus-monica-lewinsky-and-truth-distortions/

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About Luka Misetic: Luka currently represents Croatian General Ante Gotovina before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, The Netherlands

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Comment: had the filmmakers interviewed the lawyers of the Accused then this film would have been a true representation, or a balanced representation of facts. Furthermore, the film interviews Stjepan Mesic (former president of Croatia) who in times of his anti-Franjo Tudjman political pursuits, for his own personal gains, went on to the Hague as secret witness for ICTY prosecution! Did the filmmakers interview anyone high up from Tudjman’s side – I think not! The fact that the film says that no international dignitaries were at Tudjman’s funeral can easily be ascribed to Mesic’s craft. It is Mesic and those who did not attend the funeral that should bow their heads in shame for this (if shame is what the film is trying to portray) and not the soul of Tudjman.   

The 1990’s war in Croatia WAS NOT ABOUT OPERATION STORM IT WAS ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE OPERATION STORM – BEFORE AUGUST 1995! OPERATION STORM CANNOT DEFINE THE WAR IN CROATIA AND THE WAR CANNOT BE REMEMBERED BY OPERATION STORM ONLY! So let’s not allow the full truth to become lost! Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps.(Syd)

Luka Misetic Photo: Darko Tomas/Cropix

Reblogged from Misetic Law blogspot

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NOVEMBER 10, 2012 – by Luka Misetic

After my last blog post about the distortions in the film of the European Stability Initiative titled, “Twilight of Heroes,” I posted the blog post to ESI’s Facebook page. (http://www.facebook.com/pages/European-Stability-Initiative-ESI/94999142121?fref=ts). A debate ensued on Facebook between me and “European Stability Initiative,” although the author of the Facebook commentary on ESI’s behalf chose not to reveal his/her true identity.

I have since discovered that the filmaker, Gerald Knaus, has cross-posted the Facebook debate to his own personal blog, without having told me.See (http://www.esiweb.org/rumeliobserver/2012/11/10/an-exchange-between-esi-and-gotovinas-lawyer-who-is-distorting-facts/).  Normally, Mr. Knaus would not have an obligation to tell me he had cross-posted the debate to his own blog, but it would have been courteous of him to do so in light of the fact that on his blog Mr. Knaus addresses comments to me personally, asking me to “acknowledge that the charge that ESI distorted facts, is neither for nor accurate nor warranted.”

I find it surprising that Mr. Knaus is even attempting to refute my charge that the film (at least in the preview clip) distorts the truth.  Let’s try this simple test.  ESI is planning several presentations of the film throughout Europe in the coming days and weeks.  I suggest that ESI poll the audience upon the conclusion of the film, and invite them with a show of hands to show whether they believe that Ante Gotovina was convicted by the ICTY for being part of a criminal conspiracy along with Franjo Tudjman and others to allow the murder and intimidation of Serb civilians, so as to ethnically cleanse the “Krajina.”

If more than 90% of the audience responds affirmatively (as I suspect they will), then the film distorted the truth and failed to educate its audience.  Mr. Knaus in his own defense argues that the film uses the qualifier “Prosecutors argued….” that the Croatian leadership had allowed murders and intimidations to take place, and therefore his film, technically speaking, did not distort the truth.  I could not disagree more.  One is reminded of Bill Clinton’s famous admonition to the American public, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.”  Clinton’s comment may have been technically true. But was it a distortion of the truth?  Of course it was.

Similarly, ESI’s film may be technically true in that it uses the phrase, “prosecutors argued” as a prefix to the claim that Croatian leaders allowed murders of Serbs to take place.  But does the film provide the “whole truth?”  It does not.  By leaving Carla Del Ponte’s arguments unrebutted in the film, the viewer is led to believe that Del Ponte’s argument ultimately was accepted by the court.

The audience should not leave a viewing of a documentary film under a misimpression of the truth, created by the film itself.  I believe there is no doubt that Mr. Knaus’s audience members will leave the film under that misimpression, and for that reason I continue to assert that the film is a distortion of the truth, at least as to the claims of a Croatian conspiracy to allow Serbs to be murdered and intimidated.

Finally, Mr. Knaus writes, ”Twilight of Heroes is also not a film about Ante Gotovina [sic] as Mr. Misetic writes. It is a film about Croatia, and how this country managed to break out of its isolation in 1999, faced its past, and transformed itself.” The film, however, is entitled, “Twilight of Heroes.”  If the film is not about Ante Gotovina, then which heroes have reached their twilight?

Related post: http://inavukic.com/2012/11/13/european-stability-initiative-distorts-the-facts-about-general-gotovina/

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About Luka Misetic: Luka currently represents Croatian General Ante Gotovina before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, The Netherlands

General Ante Gotovina – November 2012 Photo: Filip Brala/Pixsell

An intimate confession by General Ante Gotovina given in his family home in Pakostane after his acquittal in The Hague

Authors: Jadranka Juresko-Kero, Davor Ivankovic, Goran Ogurlic

Published in Croatia’s Vecernji List 26^th and 27^th November 2012. (http://www.vecernji.hr)

(Translated into English by Ina Vukic)

“I believe that our destinies are written in God’s book, and so too the fact that as a young man I went into the world and became a soldier. I believe that it’s also written in there that I return as an experienced soldier and help the homeland that was under attack in the war it did not want”.

Translated and re-published on this blog with permission from Croatia’s leading daily newspaper Vecernji List

The complete interview with General Ante Gotovina can be read here

Luka Misetic Photo: Darko Tomas/Cropix

Reblogged

From Misetic Law

By Luka Misetic

[PART I][1]

On 16 November 2012, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia established that Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac are innocent as a matter of law, and that there is insufficient evidence of a Joint Criminal Enterprise to remove the Serb population from Croatia during and after Operation Storm.  The Judgement has been criticized in certain limited circles, including Serbian government officials, Serbian academics (Milena Sertio, Miroslav Baros, Marko Milanovic), lawyers representing the Republic of Serbia (Marko Milanovic), former employees of the Office of the Prosecutor (including Carla Del Ponte and Anton Nikiforov) and persons affiliated with former Deputy Prosecutor David Tolbert  (Paul Seils, Refik Hodzic).[2]  All of these individuals cite the dissenting opinions of Judges Pocar and Agius to justify their criticism of the ICTY in the Gotovina case.

I decided to write this blog post in order to set the record straight. The dissenting opinions of Judges Pocar and Agius are based upon incorrect interpretations of the law, the evidence and the positions of the parties in this case.  As I will explain below and in subsequent blog posts, the Majority’s Judgement in this case was grounded not only in the law and the evidence, but also in traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.

THE “TOTALITY OF THE EVIDENCE”

One of the popular criticisms of the Gotovina Judgement is that the Appeals Chamber did not consider the “totality of the evidence” in assessing the culpability of Gotovina and Markac, but instead focused too narrowly on the 200 Meter Standard.

Any fair assessment of the “totality of the evidence” leads to the following inescapable conclusions:  Gotovina and Markac are innocent, there was no JCE, and the convictions of Gotovina and Markac by the Trial Chamber was one of the biggest scandals in the history of international criminal law.  The Prosecution, the Defence, the Trial Chamber and the Appeals Chamber (including Judges Pocar and Agius) all unanimously agree on the following “totality of the evidence”:

1.     The Prosecution could not produce any evidence of the identity of a single civilian victim of shelling by Gotovina’s forces.  The evidence in the trial record did not provide a single scrap of evidence that identified any civilian who was killed or even injured by shelling, anywhere in the so-called “Krajina.”

2.     The Prosecution could not produce any evidence of the identity of a single Serbian civilian who claimed to have fled Croatia due to fear of shelling. Thus, while the Trial Chamber (wrongly) concluded that at least 20,000 Serb civilians fled Croatia from the four towns of Knin, Benkovac, Obrovac and Gracac due to fear of shelling, not a single one of these 20,000 has ever been identified.

3.     The United Nations conducted an investigation into the shelling of Knin immediately after Operation Storm.  On 18 August 1995, the United Nations concluded that the shelling “was concentrated against military objectives,” and that “only few impacts (3-5) is observed in other urban areas.”[3]

4.     Both the Trial Chamber and Appeals Chamber unanimously agree that in all areas of the “Krajina” except Knin, Benkovac, Obrovac and Gracac, the “Krajina” Serbs left for their own reasons, unrelated to any unlawful conduct by Croatian forces.  According to the Trial Chamber, these reasons included:

•      “Krajina” Serb officials telling inhabitants to leave the areas (Trial Judgement, paragraph 1762);
•    Fear of violence commonly associated with armed conflict (Trial Judgement, paragraph 1762);
•   General fears of Croatian forces and a distrust of Croatian authorities (Trial Judgement, paragraph 1762); and
•      The fact that other Serbs were departing caused some to leave (Trial Judgement, paragraphs 1754, 1762).

Generals Gotovina and Markac were thus the first (and hopefully the last) defendants in the history of international criminal law to have been convicted and sentenced to draconian punishments even though there are no known victims of the alleged common criminal purpose of the Joint Criminal Enterprise.  Moreover, no coherent explanation has ever been provided (by the Prosecution, Trial Chamber or Judges Pocar and Agius) justifying the claim that the Majority acted unreasonably in concluding that the Krajina Serbs in Knin, Benkovac, Obrovac and Gracac left for the exact same reasons that the Krajina Serbs left from everywhere else in the “Krajina” (cited above in paragraph 4).

Even though there are no victims of shelling in the four towns, and even though not a single Serb civilian was ever identified as having left Croatia from the four towns due to fear of shelling, Judges Pocar and Agius argue that “no reasonable trier of fact could conclude any differently” than that the Serbs from these four towns were expelled by Gotovina’s artillery fire.[4]  Why?  Which Serbs? No responses to these questions are ever provided. Why did the Prosecution have no trouble identifying shelling victims in Sarajevo (Galic, Dragomir Milosevic cases) and Dubrovnik (Strugar case) and Zagreb (Martic case), but couldn’t identify a single shelling victim in Operation Storm? Could not a reasonable Appeals Chamber have concluded that, unlike the shelling of Sarajevo, Dubrovnik and Zagreb, the shelling in Operation Storm was so lawful that it produced no civilian casualties?

Any discussion of the “totality of the evidence” must start with the undeniable fact that this was a victimless alleged JCE 1, a fact that Judges Pocar and Agius do not address in their analysis.

WHY JUDGE POCAR IS WRONG

Preliminary Comment Concerning the Tone of Judge Pocar’s Dissent

Commentators have noted the inappropriate, ad hominem tone of Judge Pocar’s dissent. Indeed, Judge Pocar refers to some of the Majority’s arguments as “grotesque,” and chastises the Majority’s opinion as “contradict[ing] any sense of justice.”  But what would we say about the “sense of justice” of a court that affirms a 24-year sentence against a person even though there are no known victims?  I leave it as an open question.

More disturbing is Judge Pocar’s repeated claim that the Majority was “pretending” to analyze the evidence and the law, a claim that he repeats five times.[5]  The word “pretend” is defined as:  “to appear falsely, as to deceive, feign.”  Judge Pocar’s repeated use of such a loaded word is an unfortunate ad hominem assault on the integrity of his colleagues in the Majority, which is unjustified given the serious errors in reasoning that litter Judge Pocar’s dissent.

At other sections in his opinion, Judge Pocar belittles his colleagues. For example, he claims that the Majority misrepresented the Prosecution’s arguments concerning alternate modes of liability, and uses this “fact” as evidence of the overall “erroneous analysis” by the Majority:

From a purely legal perspective, the Majority’s reasoning with respect to the possibility of revising a mode of liability is based on a legal confusion. In its analysis, the Majority repeatedly refers to the possibility of entering convictions under alternate modes of liability. It does so even when summarising the Prosecution’s submissions in this respect, although the Prosecution never referred to “entering” new convictions on appeal, but carefully adopted the correct language of “revising” a conviction for a certain crime from one mode of liability to another. The Majority’s mischaracterization and incorrect attribution of legal arguments to the parties in this case is another illustration of the Majority’s erroneous analysis.[6]

It goes without saying that before a judge decides to launch ad hominem arguments against his colleagues and belittle them for allegedly “mischaracterizing and incorrectly attributing” legal arguments to the parties, he must be sure that he has his own facts right.  Here, Judge Pocar got his facts wrong:  the Majority correctly recited the Prosecution’s position.  The Prosecution argued as follows:

However, in the event that the Appeals Chamber were to find any error affecting Gotovina’s JCE liability, it should enter convictions under one of the alternative modes of liability, namely: ordering, planning, instigating, aiding and abetting and superior responsibility under Art.7(3). Because the Chamber found Gotovina liable through his participation in the JCE, it did not enter findings on the alternative modes of liability.[7]
Hence, the Prosecution in fact did ask the Appeals Chamber to “enter” convictions on alternate modes of liability. Judge Pocar thus hoists himself on his own petard:  rather than belittling the Majority for misstating the Prosecution’s position, he exposes his own erroneous analysis, which unfortunately is evident throughout his dissent (as will be explained more fully below and in subsequent blog posts).

The Motives Behind Quashing the Existence of the JCE

Before turning to the substance of Judge Pocar’s arguments, it is appropriate here to address another issue that is related to the ad hominem arguments Judge Pocar advances against his colleagues in the Majority.  This concerns Judge Pocar’s criticism of the Majority for quashing not only Gotovina’s and Markac’s convictions based on JCE, but also for quashing the Trial Chamber’s finding of the existence of a JCE altogether:

Even if the Majority wished to acquit Gotovina and Markac entirely, one might wonder what the Majority wanted to achieve by quashing the mere existence of the joint criminal enterprise rather than concentrating on Gotovina’s and Markac’s significant contributions to the joint criminal enterprise. I leave it as an open question.[8]

Some commentators have claimed that this passage contains “an implicit suggestion that in considering the trial judgment the majority could be guided by motives other than purely legal.”[9]  I disagree. Judge Pocar’s criticism here is directed against the Majority’s refusal to consider anything other than purely legal motives in arriving at its Judgement.

Judge Pocar essentially argues that even if the Appeals Chamber were to acquit Gotovina and Markac, it should have established that a JCE existed involving three deceased individuals:  Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, Minister of Defence Gojko Susak, and Croatian Army Chief of Staff Zvonimir Cervenko.  From the context of his dissent, it is clear that the main focus of Pocar’s ire is Tudjman.[10]  But it is indisputable that there is no legal purpose to be served in condemning three individuals who are deceased and thus unable to defend themselves from the allegation that they were members of a JCE, in particular in a case where the accused who are actually before the court are going to be acquitted. Judge Pocar apparently wanted to use the ICTY’s imprimatur to condemn Tudjman as a war criminal, without Tudjman being able to defend himself.  Had the Tribunal done so, it arguably would have violated the European Convention on Human Rights.[11]  Judge Pocar notably fails to address this issue.

Judge Pocar perhaps hoped to use such a “conviction” of Tudjman for the purposes of “reconciliation” and “evenhandedness” that we have heard so much about since the Appeals Judgement.[12]  The Majority, to its credit, limited itself to the evidence and the law, and resisted calls to consider extra-legal issues in arriving at its Judgement.  If Judge Pocar believed that there was some legitimate purpose to be served in using an acquittal of Gotovina and Markac to condemn Tudjman, Susak and Cervenko without trial, he should have provided some justification for his position.  The Majority, however, should not be accused of playing “politics.”  On the contrary, it is the Majority’s refusal to play politics (i.e. deliver judgements on the basis of outside political concerns like “reconciliation,” or creating the perception of ICTY “evenhandedness”) that has caused such consternation among some, including perhaps Judge Pocar.  If so, the question arises as to whether Judge Pocar’s motive to condemn Franjo Tudjman is “purely legal,” or whether it is something else.  I leave it as an open question.

The Majority Correctly Applied the Standard of Review

All five judges of the Appeals Chamber unanimously agreed that the Trial Chamber erred in establishing a 200 Meter Standard.  The Trial Chamber made an error of fact in establishing the 200 Meter Standard because it was “not linked to any evidence.”[13]  Judge Pocar also agrees with the Majority that the 200 Meter Standard amounts to an error of law because the Trial Chamber failed to provide a reasoned opinion in writing, in violation of Article 23 of the Tribunal’s Statute.[14]  Because the Trial Chamber failed to provide a reasoned opinion on a key element of the offences of persecution and deportation (i.e. whether there was an unlawful attack against civilians and civilian objects), the Majority decided that it would “consider de novo the remaining evidence in the record to determine whether the conclusions of the impact analysis are still valid.”[15]

The question arises whether the Appeals Chamber should conduct a de novo review of the evidence in a case where the Appeals Chamber has concluded that the Trial Chamber has failed to provide a reasoned opinion on a key element of an offense.  The Appeals Chamber eleven months earlier in the Bagosora case resolved this question.  There, in assessing whether the Trial Chamber erroneously convicted the appellant of command responsibility, the Appeals Chamber concluded that the Trial Chamber had failed to provide a reasoned opinion in support of its conclusion that the appellant had failed to punish culpable subordinates. As a result:

The Appeals Chamber considers that, given the absence of any further reasoning supporting the conclusion that Bagosora failed to fulfil his duty to punish culpable subordinates, the Trial Chamber failed to provide a reasoned opinion. In these circumstances, the Appeals Chamber has reviewed the Trial Chamber’s factual findings and the relevant evidence on the record to determine whether a reasonable trier of fact could have found beyond reasonable doubt that Bagosora failed to take reasonable and necessary measures to punish his subordinates for the crimes committed.[16]

The Appeals Chamber used a similar approach in the Haradinaj Appeals Judgement.[17] In Haradinaj, because of the Trial Chamber’s failure to provide a reasoned opinion, the Appeals Chamber conducted a de novo review in order to determine “whether a reasonable Trial Chamber” could have found certain witnesses to be credible.

The Majority here adopted the same standard of review as did the Bagosora and Haradinaj Appeals Chambers (which, notably, both included Judge Pocar).  Once it was established that the Trial Chamber had failed to render a reasoned opinion concerning the 200 Meter Standard, the Appeals Chamber reviewed the Trial Chamber’s factual findings and relevant evidence on the record to determine whether a reasonable trier of fact could have found beyond reasonable doubt that Gotovina and Markac had launched an unlawful artillery attack against civilians and civilian objects.

The Majority’s approach was thus well established in the jurisprudence of the Tribunal.  However, Judge Pocar muddies the waters by conflating two separate types of errors of law:  (1) errors of law resulting from a Trial Chamber’s failure to render a reasoned opinion, and (2) errors of law resulting from the application of an incorrect legal standard.  In the case of the former, the Appeals Chamber has no obligation to provide “the correct legal standard,” because the Trial Chamber’s legal error is not in the misapplication of a legal standard but in the failure to provide a reasoned opinion of its assessment of the evidence or its legal conclusions. It is only in the latter case, where the Trial Chamber has applied the wrong legal standard, that the Appeals Chamber is required to articulate the correct legal standard.

By conflating the two distinct types of errors of law, Judge Pocar speciously criticizes the Majority for allegedly failing “to articulate the correct legal standard and review the factual findings of the Trial Chamber accordingly.”[18]  However, the Majority never claimed that the Trial Chamber had applied the wrong legal standard, but rather that it failed to render a reasoned opinion in writing.  This is a critical distinction.

There is simply no support in the Tribunal’s jurisprudence for Judge Pocar’s claim that where a Trial Chamber fails to render a reasoned opinion, the Appeals Chamber must establish “the correct legal standard.”  Indeed, Judge Pocar in Bagosora and Haradinaj supported the approach ultimately adopted by the Gotovina Majority. Bagosora and Haradinaj amply support the Majority’s standard of review adopted in the Gotovina appeal.

[In my next blog post in Part II, I will address Judge Pocar’s arguments concerning the Majority’s findings on the artillery attack, the Joint Criminal Enterprise, and the alternate modes of liability.   In Part III, I will address Judge Agius’s dissent.]

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[1] Full disclosure:  for those who are not aware, I was counsel for Ante Gotovina in the proceedings before the ICTY.
[2] Seils and Hodzic are employed by the International Center for Transitional Justice, of which David Tolbert is president.  While Deputy Prosecutor of the ICTY, Tolbert was involved in the preparation of the indictments against Ante Gotovina and Ramush Haradinaj, both recently acquitted.
[3] See trial exhibit P64, at the following link:  http://icr.icty.org/LegalRef/CMSDocStore/Public/English/Exhibit/NotIndexable/IT-06-90/ACE80787R0000319865.TIF
[4] Dissenting opinion of Judge Agius, at paragraph 46.
[5] Judge Pocar’s Dissenting Opinion, at paragraphs 11, 23, 25, 31 and at footnote 30.
[6] Pocar dissent, paragraph 32.  Emphasis added.
[7] Respondent’s Brief of the Prosecution,  28 September 2011, at page 116, footnote 1112, as found at http://icr.icty.org/LegalRef/CMSDocStore/Public/English/Response/NotIndexable/IT-06-90-A/BRF286R0000349149.pdf
[8] Pocar dissent, at paragraph 30.
[9] Open Question About Intentions, SENSE News Agency, 20 November 2012, as found at http://www.sense-agency.com/icty/open-question-about-intentions.29.html?news_id=14408
[10] See Pocar dissent, paragraph 26.
[11] See case of Vulakh and Others v. Russia, before the European Court of Human Rights, Application Number 33468/03 (10 January 2012), at paragraphs 32-37, as found at http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=001-108500.
[12] David Harland, Selective Justice for the Balkans, as found at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/08/opinion/global/selective-justice-for-the-balkans.html?_r=0
[13] Appeals Chamber Judgement, at paragraph 61.
[14] Pocar Dissent, at paragraph 6.
[15] Appeals Judgement, paragraph 64.
[16] Bagosora and Nsengiyumva v. The Prosecutor, Case No. ICTR-98-41-A, Judgement, 14 December 2011, at paragraph 683, as found at http://www.unictr.org/Portals/0/Case%5CEnglish%5CBagosora%5CJudgement%5C111214-%20Appeals%20Judgement.pdf
[17] Haradinaj Appeals Judgement, paragraph 134, 147, 154, 226, 254, as found at http://www.icty.org/x/cases/haradinaj/acjug/en/100721.pdf
[18] Pocar Dissent, at paragraph 9, 11.

Memorial cemetery for victims of Vukovar Hospital 1991 massacre
Photo: Associated Press

It is said that the ICTY will close shop in 2014. There are still cases pending completion both in Trial and Appeal Chambers. Judging from the length of time previous cases had taken to completion it’s obvious that one year is nowhere near enough for due process to be satisfied under same conditions. ICTY’s “exit plan” or completion strategy may involve referral of cases to other existing international jurisdictions, create new mechanisms for dealing with the remainder of cases, refer cases to “local” jurisdictions in countries of the region, etc.  Whatever happens one thing should be kept in mind: due process deserves and demands similar conditions to those provided to completed cases.

Besides delivering its farcical and grotesque judgment against the 6 Croats from Herceg-Bosna (and the long deceased Croatian leadership headed by Franjo Tudjman)  on 29 May, on 30 May the ICTY Trial Chamber proved that its reasoning and judgment are indeed as grotesque as grotesque can possibly get.

On 30 May it brought down its decision in the case of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic – Serbs who were charged with having directed, organised, equipped, trained, armed and financed units of the Serbian State Security Service which murdered, persecuted, deported and forcibly transferred non-Serb civilians from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and Croatia between 1991 and 1995.

“The majority of Trial Chamber, Judge Picard dissenting, acquitted of all charges Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic, former Chief of the Serbian State Security Service and former employee of the Serbian State Security Service.

The Chamber today found that those units committed the crimes of deportation, forcible transfer and murder at numerous locations in those two countries, and that they constitute persecution as a crime against humanity.
However, the Chamber found that Stanisic and Simatovic cannot be held criminally responsible for these crimes. After analysing evidence, the majority, Judge Picard dissenting, was unable to conclude that the accused shared the intent to further the common criminal purpose of the joint criminal enterprise. The Chamber also found that it was not proven beyond reasonable doubt that Stanisic or Simatovic planned or ordered the crimes. With regard to the allegations of aiding and abetting, the majority determined, Judge Picard dissenting, that in the instances that the two accused rendered assistance to the special units, this assistance was not specifically directed towards the commission of crimes”.

The decision (Judgment Summary PDF here) comes as a shock, to put it mildly.  It’s a second shock delivered by ICTY Trial Chamber within one week!

The records and evidence clearly show that Stanisic and Simatovic had been leaders in the ethnic cleansing enterprise of non-Serb population, had known that subordinates were committing crimes, and had done nothing to stop them.
The facts of the times covered by this case, the facts of Serb aggression against Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina are at distressing disagreement with this ICTY decision. The ICTY decision does not match factual history. It was actually forced deportations (ethnic cleansing) of non-Serb population that marked the start of the war. In Croatia these crimes were committed by Croatian Serb paramilitary forces and Jugoslav Peoples Army orchestrated and led by its Belgrade headquarters.

The ICTY Trial Chamber, amidst all the evidence pointing to Serbia’s involvement in the joint criminal enterprise against Croatia (and Bosnia and Herzegovina) and all the possible affirming conclusions it could have safely made from those facts, for its finding of exonerating Serbia of participating in joint criminal enterprise, evidently relied quite a bit on the fact that Serbia had not provided to the court any documentary or otherwise evidence as to the content of the meetings held in Belgrade between the accused and Serbia’s leadership, including Slobodan Milosevic!
“The Chamber noted that it had not received evidence about what was discussed at the meeting called by Stanisic…”, at 27 min 41 sec in ICTY Trial Chamber video of 30 May 2013 below.

Yet, in the case against the 6 Croats of Herceg-Bosna on 29 May 2013 the ICTY Trial Chamber took it upon itself to convict defenceless dead men (Croatian leaders Franjo Tudjman, Janko Bobetko, Gojko Susak, Mate Boban) of “planning and executing a joint criminal enterprise against Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, even though ample evidence before them, the dissenting opinion of a judge on the panel, clearly shows this not to have been the case!

The ICTY Trial Chamber judges in both cases took it upon themselves, it seems, to take a gambit view of evidence they did not have. They maneuvered the non-existence for the court of discussion contents of meetings in Serbia organised by Stanisic to benefit Serbia and they took the non-existence of dead Croatian leaders testimony to maneuver it against Croatia!

The bias and the latitudes of inferences the ICTY Trial judges (except the dissenting ones) in both cases have given themselves are staggering and, to quote attorney Luka Misetic – grotesque.

“This is really grotesque of the Hague tribunal. I was speechless that after 20 years the Hague tribunal arrived at this conclusion,” said Luka Misetic, who defended Croatian general Ante Gotovina before the UN court.

The madness emanating from the ICTY Trial Chamber, especially during the past couple of years, which can be taken as the years when politically motivated shaping of history of the war at the break up of former Yugoslavia has acquired and suffered from repeated panic attacks in pursuit of equating the aggressor with the victim, in pursuit of creating aggressors from those who defended themselves from aggression, ignoring to address aggression (such as employment of jihadist Mujahedins in Bosnia and herzegovina …, is so massive that it strikes one dumbfounded. And so, having that in mind, I cannot but agree with John Shattuck of the Boston Globe (War Crimes Whitewash)
“The tribunal ruling eviscerated the doctrine of command responsibility, a central principle of international criminal law. This principle was first applied by the Nuremburg tribunal established after World War II to judge the responsibility of Nazi leaders for crimes committed by the Nazi regime. If the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia majority had been sitting at Nuremberg, few, if any, Nazi leaders would have been convicted”.

Engulfed by this madness, by this injustice, by the terrifying power many ICTY Trial Chamber judges have evidently given themselves in interpreting evidence to suit political agendas, one takes solace from the ICTY Appeal Chamber and its potential for truth worthy jurisprudence in these cases. That yet needs to come, but having in mind that the closure of ICTY is apparently imminent for 2014, with yet indefinite ways as to how the cases in progress will be dealt with thereafter, the fret for justice continues.   Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

ICTY Judge Frederik Harhoff

Well, it’s been a most interesting (for want of a stronger word) week around interpretations of ICTY judgments that acquitted of war crimes some senior Croat and Serb military leaders, particularly in the past 18 months. Personal, but damming thoughts of Danish Judge Frederik Harhoff, which one can take or leave, have been leaked into the public arena and one cannot but stand abhorred!

Why on earth would a Judge of the Tribunal come out with his criticism of the same Tribunal and by doing so interfere with, or influence the process and the outcome of those ICTY cases which have yet to exhaust their right of appeal!?

Absolutely shocking! A Judge effectively denying uncontaminated justice/due process to parties within his own court! I hope Harhoff is made to suffer consequences for his poisoning of the mind-set of both the ICTY prosecutors (who would undoubtedly grow extra wings of false righteousness on the basis of Harhoff’s wicked public pondering) and the defendants who will surely feel intimidated by such poison. Harhoff should not sit on any bench, let alone the ICTY, a moment longer.

Judge Frederik Harhoff wrote a letter last week in which he criticised the ICTY President, US judge Theodor Meron. The letter seems to have been an email sent to a number of recipients, and it’s not clear to whether it was originally written in English, says Marko Milanovic of EJIL Talk.

Milanovic writes: “Harhoff is a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. His criticism amounts to a severe and dramatic accusation against the tribunal as a whole. He maintains that the American president of the tribunal has exercised ‘persistent’ and ‘intense’ pressure on his fellow judges to allow top-ranking officers to go free.
Harhoff’s five-page letter (PDF), the precise contents of which are confidential, was addressed to 56 people, including several lawyers. In the letter, Harhoff scrutinises and criticises a series of judgements acquitting Serbian and Croatian leaders.
‘The most recent of these judgements have occasioned a deep professional and moral dilemma for me, one that I have never before experienced. The worst of it is the suspicion that some of my colleagues have been exposed to short-term political pressure and this completely changes the premises of my work to serve the principles of justice and reason”, Harhoff writes in the letter. He makes it clear that the development “has awoken deep concerns both in myself and other colleagues in the corridors of this tribunal’.
…
‘It would seem’, writes Judge Harhoff, ‘that the military establishment’ in leading states such as Israel and the US ‘felt that the tribunal was getting too close to top-ranking military commands.’
He continues:
‘Has an Israeli or American official influenced the American President of the tribunal to effect a change of course?’ Harhoff writes in the letter.
…
Judge Harhoff states in his letter that the public ‘will probably never’ be told to what extent his suspicion that the American President of the tribunal has influenced the result of the case for political reasons is true:
‘But the report of the American president of the tribunal’s persistent pressure on his colleagues in the Gotovina and Perisic cases does more than suggest that he was fairly intent on arriving at an acquittal and especially that he was lucky in being able to persuade the ageing Turkish judge to change his mind at the last minute.’
The ‘ageing Turkish judge’, Harhoff refers to is the 77-year-old Mehmet Güney, who voted in November to release the two Croatian generals Gotovina and Markac.
Harhoff says that the new precedent ‘will in future and in the majority of cases allow the top-ranking person to go free. This means that American (and Israeli) commanders in chief can breathe a sigh of relief…’. Harhoff adds ‘I am left with the distinctly unpleasant impression that the tribunal has shifted course as a result of the pressure from ‘the military establishment’ of certain powerful countries’. “

Marlise Simons, of New York Times, gives a further insight into possible motives behind Harhoff’s letter: political lobbying within ICTY towards elections of its President, due in autumn 2013?  She writes: “A spokesman at the court declined to comment on the letter. Other judges and lawyers were willing to speak, provided that their names were not used.
By their accounts, a mini-rebellion has been brewing against Judge Meron, prompting some of the 18 judges of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to group around an alternative candidate for the scheduled election for tribunal president this fall. Until now, Judge Meron had been expected to be re-elected”.

Judge Harhoff writes in his letter: “…Right up until autumn 2012, it has been a more or less set practice at the court that military commanders were held responsible for war crimes that their subordinates committed during the war in the former Yugoslavia from 1992-95, when the Daytona Agreement brought an end to the war in December 1995.

The responsibility then was either normal criminal responsibility as either (1) contributing to or (2) responsibility for the top officers with command responsibilities in a military system of command authority where these failed to prevent the crime or punish the subordinates. There is nothing new in this. We had also developed an extended criminal responsibility for people (ministers, politicians, military leaders, officers and others), who had supported an overall goal to eradicate ethnic groups from certain areas through criminal violence, and which in one way or another contributed to the achievement of such a goal; it is this responsibility that goes by the name of “joint criminal enterprise”.

But then the court’s Appeals Chamber suddenly back-tracked last autumn with the three Croatian generals and ministers in the Gotovina case. They were acquitted for the Croatian army’s war crimes while driving out Serbian forces and the Serbian people from major areas in Croatia – the so-called Krajina area in August 1995 (home to generations of Serbians)”.

Oh my God! This is a judge saying this! He just simply does not accept the fact that the Croatian generals were acquitted on appeal of “join criminal enterprise” (i.e. driving out Serbian forces and Serbian people)! And he is a Judge in the same Tribunal!

Luka Misetic, defence attorney for Croatian General Ante Gotovina has registered his comment on Harhoff’s letter :

“Marko Milanovic writes: ‘Needless to say, this is one of the worst scandals to engulf the ICTY in its history, regardless of whether Harhoff’s accusations have a basis in fact or not.’
I find it troubling that something can be deemed a scandal ‘regardless of whether Harhoff’s accusations have a basis in fact or not.’ If something has no basis in fact, it is not a ‘scandal,’ it is defamation. I agree with Professor David Kaye, who noted that Harhoff’s email “reflects a ‘conspiracist attitude, tinged with anti-semitism, is obnoxious.’ Moreover, Harhoff doesn’t offer any evidence for these claims.
I also note the inconsistency of Harhoff’s claims: on the one hand, Judge Orie allegedly succumbed to ‘American pressure’ to acquit Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic, yet on the other hand Orie’s conviction of Ante Gotovina was allegedly overturned by the Appeals Chamber ‘under American pressure.’ Which one is it? Is Orie subject to ‘American pressure’ as claimed in the Stanisic case, or is he the victim of ‘American pressure’ as in Gotovina?
Moreover, Harhoff’s claim that Judge Meron put pressure on Orie to finish the Stanisic judgement by the end of May is probably true. However, there is a big distinction to be made between ‘finishing the case,’ and actually interfering as to the actual decision in the case. The ‘pressure’ by Meron was not imposed by the Americans, but rather the Security Council, which noted in a resolution that the ICTY Appeals Chamber will only hear cases in which the Notice of Appeal is filed by 30 June 2013. Any cases in which the Notice of Appeal is filed on 1 July 2013 or thereafter will be heard by the new Residual Mechanism. This is likely the reason why both the Stanisic and Prlic cases were decided in the last week of May 2013, i.e. so that both cases could be heard by the ICTY Appeals Chamber. This reflects Security Council pressure on Meron to implement the Completion Strategy (which Meron as President of the ICTY is duty bound to implement), and certainly does NOT mean that Meron actually put pressure on any Trial Chamber concerning the RESULT to be reached in these cases. The fact that Harhoff is not familiar with Security Council deadlines concerning the ICTY’s completion strategy, and instead through rumor and innuendo impugns the reputations of both Meron and the ICTY, reflects at the very least a profound ignorance on Harhoff’s part.
Finally, it is ironic that Harhoff attacks the ‘specific direction’ finding in the Perisic case as proof of a ‘US / Israeli conspiracy’ to protect military commanders, given that Harhoff himself adopted the ‘specific direction’ standard in his recent judgement in the Zupljanin case. (See paragraph 786 here).
If Harhoff really had a problem with the ‘specific direction’ standard, he shouldn’t have adopted it in Zupljanin. Rather, he should have written a well reasoned dissent, explaining the legal reasoning behind his objection to the ‘specific direction’ standard. Instead, Harhoff to his discredit chose to follow the Appeals Chamber’s lead while ‘on duty’ as an ICTY judge, but when off duty chose to impugn the integrity of his ICTY colleagues in a frivolous email to over 50 of his friends.
Shame on him. Harhoff should be reminded of the old adage: ‘When you point a finger of accusation at someone else, remember that you have three fingers pointing right back at you. Luka Misetic”

Having all above in mind: what hope does democracy have, what hope does humanity have when we have among us judges who prostitute the rule of law (as set by courts) so; cheapen justice and due process; fuel conspiracy theories that have not, up until now, found a voice among the judiciary!

There have been ample criticisms of the ICTY Trial Chamber’s decisions in the past years, and I myself have certainly not shied away from them. Dishing out of political decisions rather than justice has been a consensus between many independent analysts and commentators. However, when an ICTY judge joins the ranks of public analysts and commentators on the judgments of his own court then there is cause for alarm; due process of justice, which is inseparable from independence of the bench, is profoundly compromised. Furthermore, it gives cause to question every decision, every judgment, ever delivered by the ICTY, every indictment ever delivered by the ICTY Prosecution.

Not only that, it would seem that the world does not need due process any more: if it were up to Harhoff, all we need is an indictment, no trial, no appeal, – straight to prison! Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

CHECK OUT MORE OPINION ON THE MATTER:

Dov Jacobs, Assistant Professor in International Law and International Criminal Law at Leiden University

Reblogged from Misetic Law

By Luka Misetic

Much has been made in the past week about the incredibly naive email sent by ICTY Judge Fred Harhoff to 56 of his “closest friends.”  According to the New York Times, on 6 June 2013, Judge Harhoff sent an unsubstantied, highly defamatory email to over 56 people in which he cast doubt on the propriety of the acquittals of several accused persons before the ICTY.[1]  Not surprisingly, the letter was leaked immediately to the international press.  At the outset, it should be noted that Judge Harhoff had no involvement whatsoever in the Gotovina, Perisic, Stanisic or Haradinaj cases, and thus had no access to any “inside information” about these matters.  Nevertheless, in his email Judge Harhoff made the following defamatory statements without any evidence to support them:

But then the court’s Appeals Chamber suddenly back-tracked last autumn with the three Croatian generals and ministers in the Gotovina case. They were acquitted for the Croatian army’s war crimes while driving out Serbian forces and the Serbian people from major areas in Croatia – the so-called Krajina area in August 1995 (home to generations of Serbians)…What can we learn from this? You would think that the military establishment in leading states (such as USA and Israel) felt that the courts in practice were getting too close to the military commanders’ responsibilities.
Well, that begs the question of how this military logic pressures the international criminal justice system? Have any American or Israeli officials ever exerted pressure on the American presiding judge (the presiding judge for the court that is) to ensure a change of direction? We will probably never know. But reports of the same American presiding judge’s tenacious pressure on his colleagues in the Gotovina -Perisic case makes you think he was determined to achieve an acquittal – and especially that he was lucky enough to convince the  elderly Turkish judge to change his mind at the last minute. Both judgements then became majority judgements 3 -2. …
You may think this is just splitting hairs. But I am sitting here with a very uncomfortable feeling that the court has changed the direction of pressure from “the military establishments” in certain dominant countries. …
The latest judgements here have brought me before a deep professional and moral dilemma, not previously faced. The worst of it is the suspicion that some of my colleagues have been behind a short-sighted political pressure that completely changes the premises of my work in my service to wisdom and the law.
(Emphasis added).

A careful review of the above passages reveals that Harhoff admits that he has absolutely no evidence to support the assertions made in his email:

1.      Harhoff consistently writes that these are his “suspicions” and “uncomfortable feeling(s)”, i.e. things that “one would think”;

2.       Harhoff outrageously asks the question (as opposed to asserting as fact) whether “any American or Israeli officials ever exerted pressure on the American presiding judge (the presiding judge for the court that is) to ensure a change of direction?” He then proceeds to answer the question by acknowledging that he has no evidence to support any claim of impropriety:  “We will probably never know.”

3.        Harhoff refers to “reports” that the American presiding judge in the Gotovina case put “tenacious pressure” on his colleagues in the Gotovina case and that he was “lucky enough to convince the elderly Turkish judge to change his mind at the last minute.”  The statements in this sentence are preposterous for several reasons:

i.                 Harhoff claims to have heard “reports” to this effect.  These “reports” appear to be nothing more than rumors and innuendo that are typically exchanged in the Tribunal’s cafeteria and corridors.  While I was defence counsel at the ICTY, I often heard such “cafeteria reports” and most often found them to be unsubstantiated;

ii.              Harhoff claims that Judge Meron exerted “tenacious pressure” on the “elderly Turkish judge,” Judge Guney.  It should be noted that Judge Meron is six years older than Judge Guney, so Harhoff’s implication that Judge Meron took advantage of an “elderly” colleague is absurd on its face.  Moreover, Harhoff’s disparagement of his fellow colleagues is beneath the dignity of the office he holds.  For the record, I have heard many “cafeteria reports” at the ICTY about Harhoff, but would never make them public absent evidentiary corroboration.  Judge Harhoff should have held himself to the same professional standards.

iii.            Harhoff has acted irresponsibly by repeating in public rumors he has heard in the ICTY rumor mill.  Several days after Harhoff’s email was published, the ICTY’s official rumor mill, SENSE news agency, published another rumor which completely contradicts Harhoff’s innuendo about Judge Guney. On 17 June 2013, SENSE claimed as follows:  “According to the rumors, the five judges met only once (for one hour or one and a half hour at most), established that the votes are 3 to 2 in favor of an acquittal and went away: the majority refused to further discuss any of the issues with the minority.” [2]  Accordingly, Harhoff’s claim that Judge Guney changed his vote at the last minute is now contradicted by SENSE’s most recent rumor that the judges had reached a 3:2 vote at the very outset of their deliberations, thus demonstrating the gross recklessness (by both Harhoff and SENSE) of publicly repeating unreliable ICTY rumors.

Judge Harhoff would have been wiser to avoid commenting about cases in which he took no part.  Instead, he could have provided his “56 friends” with information about the inner workings of the ICTY through his own personal experience. Judge Harhoff has sat in judgement in many cases at the ICTY, including Dragomir Milosevic, Delic, Stanisic and Zupljanin, Seselj, et. al.  Was any political pressure exerted on him in those cases? Did Judge Meron ever try to interfere with his work in any of those cases?

I suspect that Judge Harhoff’s answer to these questions would be in the negative.  If so, it’s really too bad that he did not give Judge Meron and his colleagues in the Appeals Chamber the benefit of his doubt.
________________________________________

[1] Marlise Simons, Judge at War Crimes Tribunal Faults Acquittals of Serb and Croat Commanders, New York Times, 14 June 2013, as found at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/world/europe/judge-at-war-crimestribunal-faults-acquittals-of-serb-and-croat-commanders.html?_r=0.  Judge Harhoff’s email is attached hereto as Exhibit A.
[2] Mirko Klarin, A Question for the Judges: And What Have You Done?, SENSE News Agency, 17 June 2013, as found at http://www.sense-agency.com/icty/a-question-for-judges-%E2%80%98and-what-have-you-done%E2%80%99.29.html?news_id=15064&cat_id=1

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Luka Misetic Photo: Darko Tomas/Cropix

About Luka Misetic: Lawyer, based in the United States of America. Luka Misetic represents clients in state, federal and international litigation, including commercial, civil, white-collar criminal and international criminal cases. In business litigation, Mr. Misetic represents corporations and partnerships, as well as their directors, officers and partners in breach of contract and fiduciary duty claims, regulatory matters, trade secrets claims, fraud and negligence suits, and a variety of other claims. Mr. Misetic represented Croatian General Ante Gotovina before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, The Netherlands

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RELATED POST: Prostitution Of Justice A-la-Judge-Frederik-Harhoff Style

Judge Theodor Meron, President of International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Reblogged from Misetic Law

The Joint “Criminal” Enterprise Against Judge Theodor Meron

Coming up in Part II, I will describe the roles of Florence Hartmann and Mirko Klarin of Sense News Agency in the Meron JCE, and how and why Serge Brammertz is knowingly using the members of the Meron JCE in an effort to topple the ICTY’s President.

[19] See Agence France-Presse, Wikileaks Cables Support Criticism of ICTY Judge, 18 June 2013, as found at http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130618/wikileaks-cables-support-criticism-icty-judge

Luka Misetic Photo: Darko Tomas/Cropix

About Luka Misetic: Lawyer, based in the United States of America. Luka Misetic represents clients in state, federal and international litigation, including commercial, civil, white-collar criminal and international criminal cases. In business litigation, Mr. Misetic represents corporations and partnerships, as well as their directors, officers and partners in breach of contract and fiduciary duty claims, regulatory matters, trade secrets claims, fraud and negligence suits, and a variety of other claims. Mr. Misetic represented Croatian General Ante Gotovina before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, The Netherlands

ICTY Judge Frederik Harhoff

Written by Vesna Skare-Ozbolt, published by Croatian portal Dnevno.hr 26 June 2013

(Translated into English by Ina Vukic)

Danish newspaper Berlingske June 13 published judge Frederik Harhoff’s letter, in which he expresses his suspicions that the Hague court president Theodor Meron is under the U.S.A. and Israel governments’ influence, and that he had pressured the judges to deliver judgment of acquittal in Gotovina-Markac, Perisic and Stanisic – Simatovic cases. Judge Harhoff sent his letter to his colleagues and friends at 56 addresses and it is still not known who had leaked it to the media, reportedly without his knowledge.

Harhoff gives no evidence to support his statements but says: “Have any American or Israeli officials ever exerted pressure on the president of the tribunal, we will probably never know, or, it appears that judge Orie was also under pressure from the president of the tribunal”, etc.   Dov Jacobs, professor of international law and international criminal law at the renowned Leiden university, Netherlands, says: “The letter uses typical language of conspiracy theories for which it is also typical to subtly shift the burden of proof onto others or onto those who do not believe in conspiracy. It’s a win-win situation for the ‘conspirationists’, because evidence about the existence of conspiracy can be utilised in many ways.”

After the Gotovina-Markac case judgment, and especially after the acquittal verdict in the Perisic and Stanisic – Simatovic cases an interesting debate developed in international legal circles and opinions were divided with regards to the judgments. However, not one of the critics of these recent judgments attempted to defame judge Meron or his court politics in the media by using “a third side”.  How come, then, that judge Harhoff decided to abandon the frame of a cautious and reasonable lawyer – which, judging from his biography, he undoubtedly is – and undertake this undoubtedly planned move?   Why did he not firstly direct his complaint to the tribunal’s president, and after that, if the latter was unresponsive, to the founder of the Tribunal, i.e. to the UN Security Council.  He did not even attempt to take this course – for, if he had he would have surely revealed it now – exactly because the goal was for the letter to come to the media. It’s not known whether anyone or who stands behind judge Harhoff for him to embark so courageously upon – what is clear by now – a professional suicide.  Attorney Luka Misetic , who June 19 published on his blog an article titled “Joint criminal enterprise against judge Theodor Meron” and made interesting revelations, will possibly try to find the answer to this.

It became apparent quite quickly that one judge alone, more than politics itself, can demolish the tribunal’s credibility with his political moves with which he only put wind into the backs of all those who attempt to relativise the former and the future Hague judgments.

Hence, the family of late BiH Army general Rasim Delic has June 18 (of this year) lodged an application with the Hague tribunal to have the judgment against him reviewed (Delic was convicted in 2005 to 3 years prison on command responsibility) and their reasoning or explanation is that judge Harhoff’s letter infers his inclination to convict anyone who engaged in a high position in the war and that, therefore, his judicial integrity is doubtful. That is, judge Harhoff was a member of the tribunal in Delic case and his opinion was the decisive one that rendered the convicting judgment.  In their application to the Hague court the attorneys representing late Delic’s family claim that had the defence known at the time about such exclusive opinions held by judge Harhoff they would have sought his disqualification from hearing the case.

Judge Harhoff is a member of the tribunal in dr. Vojislav Seselj case and the judgment is expected in October of this year. Kevin Jon Heller, a professor at faculty of law in Melbourne, says that it’s to be expected that the lawyers representing Seselj will seek disqualification of the judge on the basis of the fact that it’s possible to conclude from judge Harhoff’s letter without a doubt that he is “inclined to convict”.

Savo Strbac, director of Veritas association, has June 13 (of this year) lodged an application with the Hague tribunal for a review of the judgment of acquittal in Gotovina – Markac case, calling upon new evidence (110 exhumed bodies to end of May 2013). It is interesting that in his application for the review Savo Strbac writes: “ … exhumations of the remains of Serbs killed in the aggression of the Croatian armed forces in August 1995 have been carried out”.  Time will show whether it’s true that, besides coincidence of time, there is no direct connection between his application and judge Harhoff’s letter, as Savo Strbac claims.

It’s interesting that Harhoff places the acquittals of Gotovina and Markac in the same context as the acquittal of the heads of Serb military and intelligence and attributes all three tribunal judgments to the directive politics of great powers. Also, while he can privately think whatever he wants, it is unacceptable from the professional aspect that in his letter he claims how Gotovina and Markac were acquitted of guilt “for war crimes committed by the Croatian army which deported Serb population from the area of the so-called Republic of Serb Krajina (RSK) in 1995”. Judge Harhoff should know that the acquitting judgment found that it was not a matter of “deportation” (due to alleged excessive shelling) but a matter of planned evacuation in advance and in accordance with orders and through the organisation by the authorities of the so-called RSK at the time. Croatian Homeland War memorial-document centre possesses numerous documents even from Serbian sources about that, as well as about the evacuation drills carried out much before Operation Storm. I will further add – as I had personally participated in this – that the Croatian government had managed to purchase on the “black market” the authorities’ of the so-called RSK population evacuation plans, paying for them with not a small amount of money.  During the liberating Operation Storm the Croatian army had done everything possible so that the evacuation routes remain free in order to ensure that any civilian casualties be brought down to the minimum. The judges of the Hague tribunal know all this very well.

This attempt at defaming judge Meron could have an impact (and) on the Herceg-Bosna Six generals case. That is, it’s not necessary to emphasise that judge Meron’s withdrawal from his position prior to an appeal decision being made in the case of the Six from Herceg-Bosna would suit,  except Serbia and one EU member state. And, judging from the recent unfounded and concerning statements made by Bakir Izetbegovic about an alleged aggression against BiH by Croatia, such an outcome of this shameful story would also suit the Bosniaks.

Following all these events, I’m of the opinion that judge Harhoff cannot continue working at the Hague tribunal and professor Jacobs shares my opinion and says: “It seems that judge Harhoff does not hold much respect for presumption of innocence and that he has formed opinion in advance as to who should be pronounced guilty and who innocent. Besides that, Harhoff has in his letter explicitly apostrophised two of his colleagues (judge Meron and judge Gunaya) and so I really do not see how his continued work at the tribunal is possible.

“Despite the shortages the Hague tribunal has shown in its work to date it nevertheless represents a large civilised lunge forward. It’s become evident that, after Nuremberg, such adjudication is still possible. Although it hasn’t completely responded to its historical task the Hague tribunal has, nevertheless, brought some sort of satisfaction for the victims and their families and created a conscience that crimes are not permitted even in war.

“The International criminal justice is still in its juvenile stage. Prevention of crimes, which in itself is a goal of international war crimes tribunals, cannot occur immediately”, said judge Theodor Meron in his interview in BBC’s HardTalk program in March of this year where he, even though in advanced years of his life, lucidly and concentrated responded to the standard, direct and provocative questions put to him by the interviewer. Also, he added, ” reconciliation is not the job of the court, even though it can and it should contribute to it with its decisions, that which people seek above everything else is the criminal responsibility of the individual. Reconciliation is, after all, the job of politics.”

Vesna Skare-Ozbolt

About the writer: Vesna Škare-Ožbolt was a legal advisor of the late President Franjo Tuđman for ten years and the former Minister of Justice of the Republic of Croatia. She is also President of Democratic Centre, the party in coalition with HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union).

Serge Brammertz Photo: Reuters

Brammertz No Longer Has Jurisdiction Over Gotovina Case

Reblogged from miseticlaw.blogspot.com

By Luka Misetic

Radio Free Europe today published an “exclusive” interview with ICTY Prosecutor Serge Brammertz, in which Brammertz comments that his office is “dissatisfied” with the acquittals entered in the Gotovina and Perisic cases and is “examining all legal means to contest these decisions.”  This is consistent with a press release issued by Brammertz on 24 June 2013 in which he announced, “[r]egarding the Gotovina et al. case, my Office is considering whether the specialized threshold required for review of Appeals Judgment is met.  If so, we will initiate proceedings within the prescribed one-year time frame.”  Having received repeated requests from the media to respond to Mr. Brammertz’s comments, I wish to note as follows:

First, I know of no evidence that exists (or that even could theoretically exist) which would satisfy the specialized threshold required for review of the Appeals Chamber Judgment.  Furthermore, I believe that if Mr. Brammertz believed he had such evidence in his possession, he would have filed a Motion for Review of the Appeals Chamber’s Judgment by 30 June 2013.

My first point leads into my second point:  on 1 July 2013, the ICTY lost jurisdiction over the Gotovina case, because jurisdiction as of that date was assumed by the new International Residual Mechanism (“MICT”).  According to the Statute of the MICT, “[t]he Mechanism shall have competence to conduct, and complete, all review proceedings for which the application for review of the judgment is filed on or after the commencement date of the respective branch of the Mechanism [i.e., 1 July 2013].”  (See page 18 at Article 3(2) in the Annex to the MICT Statute titled, “Transitional Arrangements.”).

Thus, if a Motion for Review of the Appeals Chamber Judgment in Gotovina is filed, it must be filed before the MICT (not the ICTY) by 16 November 2013.  Furthermore, it must be noted that Mr. Brammertz is not a Prosecutor before the MICT.  The MICT Prosecutor is Mr. Hasan Jallow (also the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda), and any decision to file a Motion for Review in the Gotovina case therefore must be made by Mr. Jallow, not Mr. Brammertz.  Mr. Brammertz can, of course, ask Mr. Jallow to file such a Motion for Review, but the final decision as to whether a Motion for Review will be filed with the MICT rests exclusively with Mr. Jallow.  Mr. Brammertz’s recent public comments might inadvertently mislead the public into believing that Mr. Brammertz has the authority to file a Motion for Review of the Gotovina Appeals Judgment.

Accordingly, if Mr. Brammertz believed he had a basis to file a Motion for Review in the Gotovina case, it is my view that he would have filed such a Motion by 30 June 2013, when he still had jurisdiction to file such a Motion at the ICTY.  By allowing the 30 June 2013 deadline to pass, and allowing jurisdiction over the Gotovina case to transfer from the ICTY to the MICT, I can only conclude that Mr. Brammertz did not believe he had a basis to file such a Motion, i.e, he does not have evidence in his possession sufficient to seek Review of the Gotovina Judgment.  This does not mean that Mr. Brammertz may not later conclude that new evidence has been discovered that would justify a Motion for Review, but if he does discover such new evidence he will have to ask Mr. Jallow to file a Motion for Review at the MICT.

Finally, I cannot but take note of Mr. Brammertz’s additional comments in the Radio Free Europe interview in which he discusses the public criticism of the Tribunal’s recent judgments.  Mr. Brammertz states that, “we in the Tribunal have to allow for such criticism, which was my message at the last two events we held at the ICTY. If criticism exists, then we have to deal with it; we have to accept constructive criticism and we should not hide from internal discussions about the work of the Tribunal.”  Having lost several high profile cases recently, Mr. Brammertz is now a strong advocate for public debate about the ICTY’s judgements, and a proponent of the notion that the Tribunal’s judges should take into account public criticism in arriving at their judgements.

Mr. Brammertz’s newfound position should be juxtaposed with his position in 2011 in response to comments made by Croatian officials criticizing the Gotovina Trial Chamber’s conviction of Generals Gotovina and Markac as well as Croatia’s criticism of the Trial Chamber’s finding that Operation Storm amounted to a Joint Criminal Enterprise.  Mr. Brammertz reported Croatia to the Security Council for its criticism of the Gotovina Trial Chamber Judgment, telling the Security Council that it is “unfortunate that in the aftermath of the judgment, the highest state officials failed to comment objectively on the outcome of the case.” 

In light of the Appeals Chamber’s subsequent decision to overturn the Gotovina Trial Chamber’s Judgement, it is clear that Croatia’s criticism of that Trial Judgment was not only “objective,” but fully justified.  Perhaps in his next interview Mr. Brammertz can explain his conversion from his 2011 role as “The Silencer” of public criticism of ICTY judgments to convict, to his 2013 role as the defender of the right to freedom of speech to criticize acquittals.

One would hope that Mr. Brammertz’s conversion is not based on naked opportunism masquerading as concern about the legacy of the ICTY.

Luka Misetic Photo: Darko Tomas/Cropix

About Luka Misetic: Lawyer, based in the United States of America. Luka Misetic represents clients in state, federal and international litigation, including commercial, civil, white-collar criminal and international criminal cases. In business litigation, Mr. Misetic represents corporations and partnerships, as well as their directors, officers and partners in breach of contract and fiduciary duty claims, regulatory matters, trade secrets claims, fraud and negligence suits, and a variety of other claims. Mr. Misetic represented Croatian General Ante Gotovina before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, The Netherlands

Reblogged from Luka Misetic blogspot

By Luka Misetic
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
More Disinformation from Milorad Pupovac & Co.
As Croatia celebrated the 18th anniversary of its liberation in Operation Storm, the Serbian National Council in Croatia issued a press release through its leader, Milorad Pupovac, in which it declared that to date, “none of the direct perpetrators was held responsible” for murders of Serb civilians committed during and after Operation Storm. Vesna Terselic of the Documenta center and Mladen Stojanovic from the Center for Peace in Osijek made similar claims.

These claims are incorrect. Several people–members of the Croatian Army–have been convicted for murder of Serb civilians after Operation Storm. Here are just a few examples (there are more, but I will not list them all here):

1. Mario Dukic, member of the Croatian Army’s 134th Homeguard Regiment, was sentenced to six years imprisonment on 10 January 1997 for the murder of Petar Bota committed on 28 September 1995;

2. Ivica Petric, member of the Croatian Army’s 15th Homeguard Regiment, was convicted on 27 May 1997 for the murder of Djurad Čanak in mid-August 1995, and sentenced to six years’ imprisonment;

3. Zeljko Sunjerga, member of the 15th Homeguard Regiment, was convicted on 29 November 2002 for the murder of Manda Tisma sometime in the first half of August 1995. He was sentenced to four years and eleven months in prison;

4. Veselko Bilic, member of the 15th Homeguard Regiment, was convicted on 2 December 1996  for the murder of Dara Milosevic in September 1995 and sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment.

I have provided only a sample of the criminal prosecutions. There are many other examples. There is no question that many other murders committed after Operation Storm have still gone unpunished, but there are many reasons why this is the case. Milorad Pupovac continues to make gross misstatements of fact in an effort to perpetuate the myth that the Croatian State intentionally refused to prosecute crimes committed after Operation Storm. Even the Trial Chamber that initially convicted Generals Gotovina and Markac rejected this claim (See Gotovina Trial Chamber Judgement, paragraph 2203).

It is time that Mr. Pupovac and others stop distorting the historical record.

Luka Misetic Photo: Darko Tomas/Cropix

About Luka Misetic: Lawyer, based in the United States of America. Luka Misetic represents clients in state, federal and international litigation, including commercial, civil, white-collar criminal and international criminal cases. In business litigation, Mr. Misetic represents corporations and partnerships, as well as their directors, officers and partners in breach of contract and fiduciary duty claims, regulatory matters, trade secrets claims, fraud and negligence suits, and a variety of other claims. Mr. Misetic represented Croatian General Ante Gotovina before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, The Netherlands

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_COMMENT_________________________

Serbian National Council (SNV) in Croatia is elected political, consulting and coordinating body acting as a self government of Serbs in the Republic of Croatia concerning the issues of their human, civil and national rights, as well the issues of their identity, participation and integration in the Croatian society.  It is an institution of the minority ethnic self-government of Serbs in Croatia, and finally by virtue of the Constitutional Law on the rights of national minorities in the Republic of Croatia. As such it enjoys the funds from Croatian taxpayers, i.e. the government budget.

Documenta (Center dealing with the past) is also an NGO in Croatia that enjoys financial support from Croatian taxpayers (via government budget/ Ministry of culture etc.); it also enjoys financial support from the EU, among other international bodies.

It’s time that the EU and Croatian government assess the work these two organisations do and appraise their support of their work, for, I am confident, no public institution that releases funds to NGOs should tolerate its name being associated with deliberately misleading political grandstanding and blatant distortions of truth and historical records these particular NGOs evidently promote. I say this in the hope that the world has moved forward and away from the days after WWII and totalitarian regimes (such as communism) when history was written with exclusions of important facts. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps (Syd)

Judge Mehmet Güney
Photo: World Bulletin

Reblogged from http://www.miseticlaw.blogspot.com.au

By Luka Mistetic

Declarations of war often have a boomerang effect, causing more damage to the attacker than the attacker had ever anticipated.  Just ask George Bush what happened after he declared “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq.  In The Hague, the war launched on the ICTY’s judges in early 2013 continues.   As I have noted previously, Judge Theodor Meron has been subjected to what I figuratively refer to as a “Joint Criminal Enterprise” by a disgruntled few.  More recently, Judge Frederic Harhoff discovered the “boomerang effect” when he launched an attack on Judge Meron in an email to 56 of his “closest friends,” only to find himself attacked on multiple fronts by multiple defendants and ultimately disqualified from the Seselj case by a panel of his judicial colleagues.

Today comes a new attack on ICTY Judge Mehmet Güney of Turkey, this time on the pages of the Süddeutsche Zeitung (“SZ”).  In an article titled, “The Fight for Supremacy on the UN Tribunal,” the SZ reports (citing those sinister “anonymous sources,” but widely believed to be sourced by a certain “Balkan journalist” based in The Hague) that Judge Güney is “no longer really sure on his feet,” that he “communicates only in writing,”  and “is no longer able to monitor long conversations and at meetings loses his orientation.”  Moreover, the “anonymous sources” allege that Judge Meron is “pulling Judge Güney along with him for as long as Judge Meron thinks he needs Judge Güney’s vote.” SZ then states that had Judge Güney not voted with the “American President of the Tribunal, then there would be no stunning 3-2 decision in favor of the acquittal of the two Croats.”

The article concludes by stating that a “medical examination of one of the judges can only be ordered by the President of the Tribunal,” and therefore the “incompetent” Judge Güney cannot be removed from the ICTY before the end of his mandate in 2015 unless the judges elect a new judge to replace Judge Meron as President of the ICTY on October 1st.  This statement, combined with the article’s title, (“The Fight for Supremacy on the UN Tribunal”), makes it clear that the article is really just part of the campaign to discredit Judge Meron on the eve of ICTY elections for President of the Tribunal, a campaign which has been organized for months by the “Balkan journalist” based in The Hague.

But let’s look at the substance of the allegations against Judge Güney, who supposedly can “communicate only in writing” and is “pulled along by Judge Meron.”  The Gotovina Appeals Chamber Judgement was delivered on 16 November 2012.  Meanwhile, Judge Güney was the Presiding Judge and the Pre-Appeal Judge in the appeal of Milan Lukic, whose appellate judgement was delivered on 4 December 2012, almost three weeks after the Gotovina Appeals Judgement.  As the Presiding Judge and the Pre-Appeal Judge in Lukic, Judge Güney had primary responsibility for administration of that case, including resolving motions and preparing the actual Judgement.  Accordingly, those now anonymously attacking Judge Güney are also calling into question the legitimacy of the appeals convictions of Milan and Sredoje Lukic.  Indeed, if the Judge most responsible for preparation of the Lukic Judgement was incompetent, then the Judgement is not sound and must be reviewed.

But was Judge Güney really able to “communicate only in writing”?  The video of the delivery of the Lukic Judgement (again, delivered three weeks after the Gotovina and Markac acquittals), suggests that Judge Güney was able to communicate verbally without any problems.  Furthermore, he delivered the Judgement for 36 consecutive minutes, contradicting the claim that he is “no longer able to monitor long conversations and at meetings loses his orientation.”

It should be noted that Judge Meron was not a member of the Lukic Appeals Chamber, so Judge Meron was not there to “pull along” Judge Güney, as the SZ article claims.   Moreover, Judge Güney was a member of a 3-2 majority (along with Judges Agius and Morrison) that voted to grant two of Sredoje Lukic’s grounds of appeal.  Unless the “anonymous sources” of SZ are willing to go so far as to suggest that Judges Agius and Morrison (like allegedly Judge Meron) are also “manipulators of the incompetent Judge Güney,” the 3-2 vote in Lukic suggests that Judge Güney is able to reach decisions competently and independently of Judge Meron or anyone else.

Finally, it should be noted that the Lukic and Gotovina Appeals Chambers had three common judges:  Judges Güney, Agius and Pocar.  If Judge Güney were “incompetent” at the time of the delivery of the Gotovina Appeals Chamber Judgement, Judges Agius and Pocar would have had to know about it.  They would have had a duty to disclose to the parties in the Gotovina case that they believed one of their colleagues was incompetent at the time of judicial deliberations.  Instead, Judges Agius and Pocar, despite vigorously dissenting from the Majority decision, never suggested in their dissents that the Majority had reached its decision where one member of the Majority was incompetent.  Moreover, Judges Pocar and Agius then went on to sit with their colleague in the Lukic case, where they not only did not disclose any concern about Judge Güney’s fitness to be a member of the Appeals Chamber, but also had no concern about Judge Güney being named the Presiding Judge in the case. Indeed, Judge Agius in the Judgement went so far as to join Judge Güney (and oppose Judge Pocar) in forming a 3-2 Majority on certain issues in the Lukic Judgement.

Accordingly, the silence of Judges Agius and Pocar in the Gotovina and Lukic cases strongly suggests that Judge Güney was not incompetent at the time of delivery of both Judgements in November and December 2012.  If it were true that Judge Güney was incompetent at the time of delivery of both judgements, and Judges Agius and Pocar kept silent, then Judges Pocar and Agius would have to be disqualified from both cases along with Judge Güney, because both Pocar and Agius would have breached their ethical duties to disclose information critical to determining whether the fundamental rights to a fair trial and to an independent and impartial tribunal were violated by Judge Güney’s membership on both panels.

Those “anonymous sources” attacking Judge Güney on the basis of his vote in the Gotovina Appeal are thus also inadvertently calling into question the ICTY’s conviction of Milan and Sredoje Lukic, once again demonstrating the “boomerang effect” of going to war on false pretenses.

Just ask “Boomerang Fred” Harhoff.

Luka Misetic Photo: Darko Tomas/Cropix

About Luka Misetic: Lawyer, based in the United States of America. Luka Misetic represents clients in state, federal and international litigation, including commercial, civil, white-collar criminal and international criminal cases. In business litigation, Mr. Misetic represents corporations and partnerships, as well as their directors, officers and partners in breach of contract and fiduciary duty claims, regulatory matters, trade secrets claims, fraud and negligence suits, and a variety of other claims. Mr. Misetic represented Croatian General Ante Gotovina before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, The Netherlands

Croatian Generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac

Like many throughout the world I sat for hours watching the live streaming of the Croatian generals’ Appeal hearing in the ICTY, Monday 14 May. Had I not heard the Appellants’ defence arguments first, had I tuned in at the point of prosecution’s arguments I could have easily concluded that the reason Operation Storm occurred in August 1995 was to expel Serbs from Croatia.

The prosecution’s view is that Operation Storm was not a military offensive (to liberate Serb occupied territory) that brought about undesired consequences, but an attack aimed at deporting the Serb civilian population out of Croatia. They said some 20,000 Serbs left Krajina due to fear from shelling by the Croatian Army. They argued that the transcripts from Croatian leadership meeting at Brijuni (July 31, 1995) and the events when Croatian army targeted whole towns for shelling where there were both civilian and military targets supported the prosecutions claim of joint criminal enterprise to drive Serbs out.

When asked by Presiding Judge Theodor Meron about the defence claim that there had been no civilian casualties during the shelling, the prosecution said that there was no need to prove that there had been civilian casualties because several witnesses said during the trial that they had seen dead bodies and wounded people in the streets of Knin.

The problem with these cited witness statements is that they had not been tested in court, nor had the credibility of the witnesses been tested; the Trial Chamber simply accepted as fact statements of witnesses who merely said that they saw some bodies lying on the streets of Knin, without proving that those bodies were in fact dead people and that, if they were dead, they were killed by the shelling… Gotovina’s defence attorney Luka Misetic brought the court’s attention to the fact that at no time, not even till today – 18 years after Operation Storm – had anybody come forth saying that a person they knew or was a family member had been killed in the shelling of Knin. Simply there were no civilian casualties from that shelling.

The prosecution pressed on with its case, saying that even if the Appeals Chamber should decide that Croatian artillery attacks during Operation Storm in the summer of 1995 were not illegal, it should rule that Croatian army did set out to expel Serbs from Krajina under joint criminal enterprise that had that goal.

Gotovina’s defence attorney Greg Kehoe challenged the use of t so-called “200-metre rule” by the Trial Chamber (2011) to determine whether artillery shells were aimed at military or civilian targets. The Trial Chamber had ruled that any shells falling more that 200 metres from a military target were aimed at civilians and Kehoe said that the Trial Chamber had introduced this rule after the prosecution failed to prove civilians were targeted.

Gotovina’s defence team sought the quashing of his convictions.

There’s no dispute that shelling was legal, it was a military operation to liberate occupied territory – legal operation whichever way one looks at it.

General Mladen Markac defence attorney John Jones said that a conclusion on the existence of a joint criminal enterprise aimed at the persecution of the Serb population could not be drawn from the transcripts of the Brijuni meeting. He said that all conclusions from the trial chamber’s verdict about the persecution of civilians were based on the conclusion on the illegal shelling, stressing that if there had been no illegal shelling, there had not been a joint criminal enterprise either.

The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) said on Monday, after a day-long appeal hearing, that a verdict would be handed down soon, adding the the key point would be the reasons for the departure of the Serb population from the territory which was under their control until the 1995 Operation Storm.

General Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac were given the opportunity to address the court themselves and this is what they said:

Gotovina spoke in the French language:  “During my entire military career, I endeavoured to perform my duties dignifiedly and honourably, and have always given my all as a commander and soldier in order to protect civilians. As a commander I am proud of the results of the Operation Storm. I’m proud not only because we won but because the damage to the civilians and their homes was minimal. As a man I very much regret every lost life and damaged property. I cannot, however, be responsible for that which others have done or omitted to do while I was away in Bosnia.

Even to this day I am convinced that I have fulfilled my duties in the best possible way. We were in a battle for life and death with the enemy, fought so we could liberate our country. We tried hard to maximally protect the lives of soldiers and civilians. If I made mistakes, such as refusing to give myself up to the court, I am the first to regret that. I am not saying that I am without sin, but I hope I will not be judged for not being perfect. But, even if you conclude that I had made wrong decisions you will not establish that I had ever wanted or agreed to that any soldier or civilian should be killed because he/she was a Serb or belonged to some other national group. 

I am conscious of and content that my actions during Operation Storm were correct and my commands are witness to that fact. Therefore, I do not seek any favours from you, nor do I ask you to do anything other than what my defence has asked of you in my name. I live with the feeling of satisfaction that my actions were in harmony with the actions of an honest and diligent military officer who had given his all in hard circumstances.

If this Chamber could simply examine my actions in that context, I will be content and would not ask anything else”.

Markac spoke in the Croatian language: “I am surprised at the statements made about Storm that were not based on facts. Moved by the attempts to reshape the facts from the Homeland war I want to say that I am not a member of a joint criminal enterprise nor am I a war criminal. I have heard about existence of a joint criminal enterprise for the first time during these proceedings. Neither the representatives of the European Union or anyone from Croatia had shown me that joint criminal enterprise exists. Never had anybody shown me illegal actions by members of the special police MUP, whose professionalism makes me especially proud. I have not committed nor hidden any crime because that is not my way of viewing life. I am a police-military officer who has performed the tasks given to him by the Minister of internal affairs of Croatia responsibly. My job was to defend and liberate illegitimately occupied Croatia.”

Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Luka Misetic Photo: Darko Tomas/Cropix

Reblogged from Misetic Law blogspot

http://miseticlaw.blogspot.com.au

8 November 2012, by Luka Misetic

The European Stability Initiative has recently broadcast a film about General Gotovina entitled, “Twilight of Heroes.”  Admittedly, I have not been able to view the entire film because it is not yet available for viewing in the United States.  Nevertheless, I was able to review the nine minute preview clip on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GcjSsc_1A7s).  I was stunned by the level of factual inaccuracy in this documentary, and viewers should be warned that the factual claims in this film are demonstrably false.

At the outset, the film shows Carla Del Ponte speaking about Operation Storm, which was led by General Gotovina.  Del Ponte claims:  “They thought if you are doing a legitimate war, you must not consider if crimes are committed, war crimes or crimes against humanity.  It is collateral damage.  But that is why the International Tribunal was created.  A war is not the permission for the commission of crimes.”

One minute later, the film’s voiceover speaker ominously claims, “Prosecutors suspected that murders and intimidations of Serb civilians during Operation Storm were not isolated incidents, but the result of a policy to ethnically cleanse these parts of Croatia of their Serb population. A criminal conspiracy planned and implemented by Croatia’s leaders.”

What the filmakers fail to tell the viewer (at least in the preview clip) is that the Trial Chamber in its Judgement rejected Del Ponte’s claims that the Croatian leadership “did not consider if crimes were being committed against Serbs, war crimes or crimes against humanity.”  Furthermore, the Trial Chamber rejected the Prosecution’s claim that Croatia’s leaders had planned and implemented a criminal conspiracy to allow murders and intimidations of Serbs in order to pursue a policy of ethnic cleansing.  As I noted in one of my earlier posts, the Trial Chamber found:

“The Trial Chamber finds that the common objective did not amount to, or involve the commission of the crimes of persecution (disappearances, wanton destruction, plunder, murder, inhumane acts, cruel treatment, and unlawful detentions), destruction, plunder, murder, inhumane acts, and cruel treatment.”(Judgement, paragraph 2321);

Rather, the evidence includes several examples of meetings and statements (see for example D409, P470, and D1451), indicating that the leadership, including Tudjman, disapproved of the destruction of property. Based on the foregoing, the Trial Chamber does not find that destruction and plunder were within the purpose of the joint criminal enterprise.” (Judgement, paragraph 2313);

In light of the testimony of expert Albiston, the Trial Chamber considers that the insufficient response by the Croatian law enforcement authorities and judiciary can to some extent be explained by the abovementioned obstacles they faced and their need to perform other duties in August and September 1995. In conclusion, while the evidence indicates incidents of purposeful hindrance of certain investigations, the Trial Chamber cannot positively establish that the Croatian authorities had a policy of non-investigation of crimes committed against Krajina Serbs during and following Operation Storm in the Indictment area.”(Judgement, paragraph 2203).

The Trial Chamber thus established that the Croatian leadership (1) did not have a policy to allow crimes like murder and intimidation to be committed against Serbs, and (2) did not have a policy of non-investigation of crimes committed against Serbs.

Accordingly, two things were very clear to me within the first five minutes of viewing the preview clip:  (1)  Carla Del Ponte continues to mislead the international public about what the ICTY Trial Chamber concluded, and (2)  the producers of this film did not bother to read the Trial Judgement or interview anyone who had actually read the Trial Judgement.

If the filmakers don’t have time to read the Trial Judgement before making a film about Gotovina, then I don’t have the time to watch their film.

Perhaps in the future the filmakers would be wise to interview the lawyers for the Accused before broadcasting their films.

Relayed Post: http://inavukic.com/2012/11/13/gerald-knaus-monica-lewinsky-and-truth-distortions/

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About Luka Misetic: Luka currently represents Croatian General Ante Gotovina before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, The Netherlands

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Comment: had the filmmakers interviewed the lawyers of the Accused then this film would have been a true representation, or a balanced representation of facts. Furthermore, the film interviews Stjepan Mesic (former president of Croatia) who in times of his anti-Franjo Tudjman political pursuits, for his own personal gains, went on to the Hague as secret witness for ICTY prosecution! Did the filmmakers interview anyone high up from Tudjman’s side – I think not! The fact that the film says that no international dignitaries were at Tudjman’s funeral can easily be ascribed to Mesic’s craft. It is Mesic and those who did not attend the funeral that should bow their heads in shame for this (if shame is what the film is trying to portray) and not the soul of Tudjman.   

The 1990’s war in Croatia WAS NOT ABOUT OPERATION STORM IT WAS ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE OPERATION STORM – BEFORE AUGUST 1995! OPERATION STORM CANNOT DEFINE THE WAR IN CROATIA AND THE WAR CANNOT BE REMEMBERED BY OPERATION STORM ONLY! So let’s not allow the full truth to become lost! Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps.(Syd)

Luka Misetic Photo: Darko Tomas/Cropix

Reblogged from Misetic Law blogspot

http://miseticlaw.blogspot.com.au

NOVEMBER 10, 2012 – by Luka Misetic

After my last blog post about the distortions in the film of the European Stability Initiative titled, “Twilight of Heroes,” I posted the blog post to ESI’s Facebook page. (http://www.facebook.com/pages/European-Stability-Initiative-ESI/94999142121?fref=ts). A debate ensued on Facebook between me and “European Stability Initiative,” although the author of the Facebook commentary on ESI’s behalf chose not to reveal his/her true identity.

I have since discovered that the filmaker, Gerald Knaus, has cross-posted the Facebook debate to his own personal blog, without having told me.See (http://www.esiweb.org/rumeliobserver/2012/11/10/an-exchange-between-esi-and-gotovinas-lawyer-who-is-distorting-facts/).  Normally, Mr. Knaus would not have an obligation to tell me he had cross-posted the debate to his own blog, but it would have been courteous of him to do so in light of the fact that on his blog Mr. Knaus addresses comments to me personally, asking me to “acknowledge that the charge that ESI distorted facts, is neither for nor accurate nor warranted.”

I find it surprising that Mr. Knaus is even attempting to refute my charge that the film (at least in the preview clip) distorts the truth.  Let’s try this simple test.  ESI is planning several presentations of the film throughout Europe in the coming days and weeks.  I suggest that ESI poll the audience upon the conclusion of the film, and invite them with a show of hands to show whether they believe that Ante Gotovina was convicted by the ICTY for being part of a criminal conspiracy along with Franjo Tudjman and others to allow the murder and intimidation of Serb civilians, so as to ethnically cleanse the “Krajina.”

If more than 90% of the audience responds affirmatively (as I suspect they will), then the film distorted the truth and failed to educate its audience.  Mr. Knaus in his own defense argues that the film uses the qualifier “Prosecutors argued….” that the Croatian leadership had allowed murders and intimidations to take place, and therefore his film, technically speaking, did not distort the truth.  I could not disagree more.  One is reminded of Bill Clinton’s famous admonition to the American public, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.”  Clinton’s comment may have been technically true. But was it a distortion of the truth?  Of course it was.

Similarly, ESI’s film may be technically true in that it uses the phrase, “prosecutors argued” as a prefix to the claim that Croatian leaders allowed murders of Serbs to take place.  But does the film provide the “whole truth?”  It does not.  By leaving Carla Del Ponte’s arguments unrebutted in the film, the viewer is led to believe that Del Ponte’s argument ultimately was accepted by the court.

The audience should not leave a viewing of a documentary film under a misimpression of the truth, created by the film itself.  I believe there is no doubt that Mr. Knaus’s audience members will leave the film under that misimpression, and for that reason I continue to assert that the film is a distortion of the truth, at least as to the claims of a Croatian conspiracy to allow Serbs to be murdered and intimidated.

Finally, Mr. Knaus writes, ”Twilight of Heroes is also not a film about Ante Gotovina [sic] as Mr. Misetic writes. It is a film about Croatia, and how this country managed to break out of its isolation in 1999, faced its past, and transformed itself.” The film, however, is entitled, “Twilight of Heroes.”  If the film is not about Ante Gotovina, then which heroes have reached their twilight?

Related post: http://inavukic.com/2012/11/13/european-stability-initiative-distorts-the-facts-about-general-gotovina/

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About Luka Misetic: Luka currently represents Croatian General Ante Gotovina before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, The Netherlands

General Ante Gotovina – November 2012 Photo: Filip Brala/Pixsell

An intimate confession by General Ante Gotovina given in his family home in Pakostane after his acquittal in The Hague

Authors: Jadranka Juresko-Kero, Davor Ivankovic, Goran Ogurlic

Published in Croatia’s Vecernji List 26^th and 27^th November 2012. (http://www.vecernji.hr)

(Translated into English by Ina Vukic)

“I believe that our destinies are written in God’s book, and so too the fact that as a young man I went into the world and became a soldier. I believe that it’s also written in there that I return as an experienced soldier and help the homeland that was under attack in the war it did not want”.

Translated and re-published on this blog with permission from Croatia’s leading daily newspaper Vecernji List

The complete interview with General Ante Gotovina can be read here

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Guest Post
By Ante Horvat

Wartime Foreign Information Warfare against Croatia, Croats and the Truth

With President Dr. Franjo Tudjman’s and HDZ’s political victory in 1990, which came after years of greater Serbian political agitation, legal abuses, ransacking of the Yugoslav Federal treasury, clandestine arming of a large swathe of Croatian Serbs, “meetings of truth,” and “spontaneous happenings of the endangered Serbian people” where stages, microphones, amplifiers and TV crews were on site before the “spontaneous happening,” it goes without saying that purges were to take place in intelligence and the police and other government sectors – where people were appointed much of the time based on Communist party loyalty and membership and not qualifications – and they did (it is important to note that more people were purged from the civil service, police and military after 2000 than in 1990 and immediately after – the bulk of those purged were Croatian Communists, not Serbs).

Tudjman would have been not just inept, but insane, if he would have allowed people who either openly supported Milosevic’s policies actively, or those, specifically in the intelligence services, who openly or tacitly supported Milosevic and or did nothing to prevent or expose the illegal arming of Croatian Serbs by Belgrade, to keep their posts. Yet the lie about Serbs being fired simply for being Serbs prevailed during the war, and was yet again repeated at the ICTY despite more Croats being fired from the government and security apparatus than Serbs.

Due to Tudjman’s and Croatia’s impossible international and domestic situation in the face of Serbian diplomatic and military supremacy, Serbia’s continual overt threats of violence to achieve its goals of “uniting Serbdom,” and Tudjman’s agenda of burying the WWII created Red-Black divide, it would have been unwise to crack down on the former regime members. Tudjman correctly chose to drive a wedge between them to use the professional abilities of those who switched to the Croatian side to help the cause for democratic state-building and deal with the criminals among them at a later date while leaving those who awaited the Yugoslav People’s Army “liberators” to take Zagreb, stare at the wall and wait for Godot with a red-star cap, forever.

There were larger priorities at hand and a statesman must choose his battles carefully, based on timing. Those left waiting for a red-star capped Godot undoubtedly had people knocking on their doors – people from foreign governments and their respective intelligence agencies.

Those same foreign governments were, to help legitimize their deliberate misrepresentations and bad, self-compromising and hypocritical policies, simultaneously were pumping money into a two pronged NGO strategy – one to promote an entirely parallel reality via NGOs they formed or funded to help form offshoots, the second, to allow journalists, diplomats and politicians to quote that parallel reality put forth by said NGOs and their subsidy recipients as if it was truth to influence or change domestic and international political opinion, and political outcomes.

Spearheading the charge of NGOs in Croatia during the 1990s was the Open Society Institute (OSI), owned by self-described “humanist” and known currency speculator and billionaire extraordinaire George Soros.

According to the October 1, 1996 Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) investigative report compiled by F. William Enghdal, Mark Burdman, Elisabeth Hellenbroich, Paolo Raimondi, and Scott Thompson:

… Soros is friends with former Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, the former U.S. ambassador to Belgrade and the patron of Serbian Communist leader Slobodan Milosevic. Eagleburger is a past president of Kissinger Associates, on whose board sits Lord Carrington, whose Balkan mediations supported Serbian aggression into Croatia and Bosnia.
Today, Soros has established his Foundation centers in Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, and a Soros Yugoslavia Foundation in Belgrade, Serbia. In Croatia, he has tried to use his foundation monies to woo influential journalists or to slander opponents of his shock therapy, by labeling them variously “anti-Semitic” or “neo-Nazi.” The head of Soros’s Open Society Fund—Croatia, Prof. Zarko Puhovski (iiiiiivv), is a man who has reportedly made a recent dramatic conversion from orthodox Marxism to Soros’s radical free market. Only seven years ago, according to one of his former students, as professor of philosophy at the University of Zagreb, Puhovski attacked students trying to articulate a critique of communism, by insisting, “It is unprincipled to criticize Marxism from a liberal standpoint.” His work for the Soros Foundation in Zagreb has promoted an anti-nationalist “global culture,” hiring a network of anti-Croatian journalists to propagandize, in effect, for the Serbian cause.
These examples can be elaborated for each of the other 19 locations across Eastern Europe where George Soros operates. The political agenda of Soros and this group of financial “globalists” will create the conditions for a new outbreak of war, even world war, if it continues to be tolerated…

Glenn Beck, the controversial American conservative radio show host and figure, once listed seven steps used by Soros to achieve his political objectives in foreign states (readers can judge for themselves using Croatia’s wartime and post-war examples, as well as multiple other examples in other areas of Europe and the world, to test the accuracy of Mr. Beck’s hypothesis):

• Form a shadow government using humanitarian aid as cover.

• Control the airwaves. Fund existing radio and TV outlets and take control over them or start your own outlets.

• Destabilize the state, weaken the government and build an anti-government kind of feeling in the country. You exploit an economic crisis or take advantage of an existing crisis — pressure from the top and the bottom. This will allow you to weaken the government and build anti-government public sentiment.

• Sow unrest.

• Provoke an election crisis. You wait for an election, and during the election, you cry voter fraud.

• Take power. You stage massive demonstrations; civil disobedience, sit-ins, general strikes and you encourage activism. You promote voter fraud and tell followers what to do through your radio and television stations. Incitement and violence are conducted at this stage.

• Outlast your opponent.

While violence was not conducted, it goes without saying that Mr. Beck’s breakdown of the Soros election-engineering model in Croatia was applied, and Mr. Soros credited himself with mobilizing civil society in Croatia to change government in his book “Open Society.”
Who else, one may ask, was funded by Soros? The recipients of generous funds include Milosevic’s unofficial rag in wartime Croatia, Feral Tribune, which simply recycled the prior week of Belgrade propaganda, as well as the bizarre Marxist magazine Arkazin, the Alternative Information Network of Former Yugoslavia, and a host of other media houses that failed on the market after OSI (Open Society Institute) ceased subsidizing their second rate agitprop, because they had no readership.
Is it just these organizations that had or have ties with Soros?
No. Croatia’s President Ivo Josipovic met with him and praised him, and was quoted in dailytportal in 2010 after meeting with Soros that he would reactivate OSI in Croatia, which he did in 2011:
Croatian President Ivo Josipovic met in New York on Thursday the billionaire George Soros to discuss the situation in Croatia and in Southeast Europe and plans to renew activities of Soros’s Open Society foundation in Croatia. 

After the meeting, Josipovic told Croatian reporters that Soros was familiar with the situation in Croatia and the rest of the region and that he was interested in some information regarding the activities and financing of his projects in the region.
USAID http://www.forum.hr/showpost.php?p=43914088&postcount=8074
National Endowment for Democracies
NDI https://www.ndi.org/files/1001_ww_newdemocs.pdf
VOA http://www.hri.org/news/usa/voa/2000/00-02-11.voa.html
International Crisis Group http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/about.aspx
Human Rights Watch: http://web.inter.nl.net/users/Paul.Treanor/HRW.html
http://www.ex-yupress.com/vjesnik/vjesnik15.html
OSCE http://www.osce.org/zagreb/19519

De-Croatization Under the Slogan of De-Tudmanization

The massive and nontransparent subsidizing of both the Social Democratic Party in the Parliamentary elections and the Croatian People’s Party member, Australian Croat check “misplacer,” YPA General Veljko Kadijevic collaborator, and the apparent ICTY perjurer Stipe Mesic, and Western NGO pro Mesic media jihad in the Presidential election cycle of late 1999 into 2000 was convincingly a continuation of Soros’s and foreign centers of power jihad to bring back the pre-1990 anti-democratic political elite structure. The reason was simple – they had no interest in promoting Croatia’s national interests, and were, and remain, interested only in power and the possibility to get wealthy in the process.
The agenda was at this point, open: it was for a softer renamed Yugoslavia, minus Slovenia plus Albania, as was clearly outlined by Soros as he championed it publicly.
The first order of business was to attack Croatia’s Homeland War, and by default, everyone who participated in it and who helped build the Croatian state. As Franjo Tudjman was the statesman who led Croatia and its police and military forces to victory, saving the B&H Croats from being killed en mass or ethnically cleansed; the phrase to de-Croatize was “De-Tudjmanization.”

The Information War Against General Ante Gotovina

The most odious information warfare campaign was against General Ante Gotovina. Indicted in an ICTY indictment that was more or less built entirely on the agitprop of multiple Serbian military and political joint criminal enterprise participant Savo Strbac and his sham NGO called “Veritas,” whom the ICTY was working with since 1993 in a blatant conflict of interest that no major Western media outlet ever reported on to date.

http://mprofaca.cro.net/poa.html

Reference/source notes:

ii – It must be noted that Prof. Puhovski, a Tito regime false witness in the show-trial of the Croatian Spring participants, in particular Duško Čizmić Marović, chaired the Lustration, Public Debates on the Past und the Rule of Law Seminar in Zagreb, 17-20 February 2005, and published several articles on the topic of lustration in Croatia, more or less advocating at best a very soft form of it.
iii – Zarko Puhovski testified against Croatian Generals Ante Gotovina, Mladen Markac and Ivan Cermak at the ICTY, claiming that the Operation Storm effects were “tantamount to ethnic cleansing.” His testimony at the ICTY, as well as the “evidence” provided by Soros-funded HHO, were thrown out of the trial due to unreliable research methodologies.
iv – Here is a transcript of Luka Misetic’s cross examination of Professor Puhovski – no comment is necessary:http://www.icty.org/x/cases/gotovina/trans/en/090217IT.htm.
v – Professor Puhovski also, along with current Croatian Ambassador to France Ivo Goldstein Jr. (who was sent to the post in 2012 despite not possessing the ability to fluently speak the language, but did not forget to bring a picture of Tito for his office wall), formed the Udruzenja za jugoslavensku demokratsku inicijativu (UJDI) [The Associations for the Yugoslav Democratic Initiative], a political front party for the Yugoslav People’s Army General Staff that was against Croatian independence, in addition European and NATO integration, two of HDZ’s stated political and strategic objectives.
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About the author: Ante Horvat was born in the USA in 1970′s. He has recently moved to live permanently in Croatia and although spending most of his life in the USA he had made several temporary residence visits to Croatia during that time. His education and professional development in history and international relations also spans across the two continents. He is an active observer of and participant in the development of democracy in Croatia since the early 1990’s and its correlation with the developed Western democracies.

Next Post: Psychological Operations And Information Warfare Against Croatia And Croats – Part IV: Foreign Intelligence Agencies, Capabilities, and Croatia

Related Posts:
http://inavukic.com/2014/03/30/psychological-operations-and-information-warfare-against-croatia-and-croats-part-i/
http://inavukic.com/2014/04/02/psychological-operations-and-information-warfare-against-croatia-and-croats-part-ii/

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Guest Post
By Ante Horvat

Foreign Intelligence Agencies, Capabilities, and Croatia

The revelations last year by Edward Snowden – and the brave reporting by Glenn Greenwald and his colleagues at The Intercept, as well as in quality independent blogs such as Washingtonsblog.com – shine a bright light on just how massive, invasive, many times in most countries, blatantly unconstitutional, and illegal surveillance has become in the world today with borderline psychotic government obsessions to control internet discourse on politics and geopolitics.

Information management is power, as management equates to control.

While the internet was not what it is today in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, signals intelligence was a key component of intelligence for all states – the pervasiveness of Internet usage has only exponentially increased its usefulness to further these goals.

Yugoslavia, which broke with Stalin earning it a false reputation as some moderate Communist regime and not a police state, due to Cold War realities managed to receive many perks.

One of those is UDBa crimes not being touched with a ten foot pole by Western governments unless the murderers were too sloppy.

Or, as was the case with the Croatian Six, a Western intelligence agency and national police would collude with UDBa to frame law-abiding citizens of Croatian descent for trumped up, UDBa planned and planted “terrorism” charges. In the case of Chicago’s Bozic family, UDBa’s attempted murder of Mrs. Bozic after she told her husband’s would be UDBa assassins that came knocking on her home door that he had left early for work that day, the Cold War perks for Yugoslavia led to a total gag on the investigation after 24 hours with no valid explanation, no further investigation, nor justice, to date.

Yet, even with the repressive domestic police state apparatus, and an aggressive foreign intelligence apparatus targeting dissenters in the West for murder, Yugoslavia was of many nations to be sold the intelligence and law enforcement Google before Google – PROMIS software.

The controversial software – which tracked cases in legal systems, but also intelligence operatives, assets, intelligence targets, and built matrices of relationships between everything in the system if there was any connection – was sold by the US to over 80 nations in the 1980s after being stolen from Inslaw Inc..

It is known that the sold pirated versions – which made it to over 80 countries – had exploits to allow for information extraction.

Which means that the U.S. – and its Five Eyes allies – potentially almost certainly had back door access to all of the not just judicial files, but also intelligence agencies’ files which in the case of Yugoslavia and other nations in the Eastern Bloc, including repressive secret police agent lists, informants and snitches, and the names and dossiers of all civilians under surveillance, which in Croatia’s case, was one third of its population.

This opens several questions.

The first is that with the fall of Tito’s Yugoslavia, why haven’t Western governments, other than Germany, aggressively called for UDBa operatives who engaged in state sponsored terrorism, to be held accountable, as well as for insisting that European states that were under Communism, to push through vigorous lustration laws such as in Germany upon reunification and Poland after it regained true independence?

The second is why, after 1990, this information which the U.S. and more than likely other Five Eyes have on the inner-workings, employee lists, informant and snitch lists, and innocent victims’ dossier lists, have not been shared with Croatia’s (or other Central, Eastern and South Eastern) European post-Communist states?

Could it be that all of those former regime elements, who were loyal to Yugoslavia and their own power within it and who were also trained operatives, were recruited by foreign governments for subversive activities?

All signs point to yes.

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About the author: Ante Horvat was born in the USA in 1970′s. He has recently moved to live permanently in Croatia and although spending most of his life in the USA he had made several temporary residence visits to Croatia during that time. His education and professional development in history and international relations also spans across the two continents. He is an active observer of and participant in the development of democracy in Croatia since the early 1990’s and its correlation with the developed Western democracies.

Related Posts:
http://inavukic.com/2014/04/05/psychological-operations-and-information-warfare-against-croatia-and-croats-part-iii/

http://inavukic.com/2014/04/02/psychological-operations-and-information-warfare-against-croatia-and-croats-part-ii/

http://inavukic.com/2014/03/30/psychological-operations-and-information-warfare-against-croatia-and-croats-part-i/