In its appeal, Dario Kordic's defense claims the indictment was "too broad" and "unclear," the evidence presented at trial "circumstantial” and the judgment "confused.” The defense deems that "nowhere" has Kordic's link with the crimes been established.

The defense of Mario Cerkez, former commander of the HVO Vitez Brigade, claims that there are "no firm foundations" for the conclusion reached in the first-instance judgment that the accused was a participant in a "criminal plan" to attack Bosniaks in the Lasva Valley.

In Dario Kordic and Mario Cerkez’s appeals hearing, the prosecution claims the penalties imposed on both men are "inappropriate" and should be increased. In Cerkez's case, the prosecution wants him found guilty of the crime in Ahmici.

Two weeks before the appeals judgment is due to be delivered, the judges order the “immediate release” of Mario Cerkez from the Detention Unit in The Hague where he has spent seven years and two months

On the day when Mario Cerkez left the UN Detention Unit, the prosecution’s motion for the “immediate stay” of the order for his “immediate release” was made public. The prosecution will seek to adduce additional evidence in support the first-instance judgment in the Cerkez case

“Based on the entirety of direct and circumstantial evidence, a reasonable trier of fact could have concluded that for Kordic this attack on Ahmici and other Lasva Valley villages was aimed at ethnically cleansing the area for strategic reasons,” the Appeals Chamber noted in its judgment. Most of the charges against Mario Cerkez were dismissed, with the exception of unlawful detention of Bosniaks in the Vitez cinema and SDK building in 1993

ICTY president Patrick Robinson dismissed the motion filed by former Bosnian Croat leader Dario Kordic for early release. Kordic served half of his prison sentence for crimes in the Lasva Valley in Central Bosnia