Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac are accused of taking part in a "joint criminal enterprise" – together with the late president Franjo Tudjman and the fugitive general Ante Gotovina – in the course of and after the Operation Storm.

Croatian generals accused of crimes committed in the course of and after Operation Storm pled not guilty today to all counts of the indictment

“Full cooperation with the Tribunal is not only a matter of national interest but the responsibility of every accused" – stated Croatian generals in their motion for provisional release

At a hearing before the Trial Chamber today, the defense asked for the provisional release of two Croatian generals, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac. The prosecution opposed the motion.

Motions for provisional release filed by Croatian generals denied

Trial Chamber finds that the repeated motion from July does not contain any new arguments that would lead the Chamber to change its decision of April 2004.

The issue of the provisional release of Croatian generals Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac is before a bench of three judges of the Appeals Chamber. Defense seeks leave to file an appeal

The prosecution is in the process of disclosing its voluminous evidence to the defense. Mladen Markac's defense warns of the accused's ill health

“There is a possibility that the Trial Chamber might have erred in its assessment of the guarantees offered by the Republic of Croatia," a bench of three judges of the Appeals Chamber notes in its decision granting leave to the Croatian generals to appeal another decision dismissing their motion for provisional release.

The prosecution “is not aware of any circumstances which justify detaining” Croatian Generals Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac pending trial, while the six accused in the Prlic et al. case have been provisionally released

In an amended indictment in the Cermak-Markac case, prosecutor introduces clarifications ordered by the Trial Chamber at the request of the defense – among other things, about “joint criminal enterprise”responsibility – while stressing that these are not “substantial” changes

Defense counsel for Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac oppose the "substantial changes" the prosecution has proposed to make in the indictment for the Operation Storm

Pre-trial judge urged the parties to speed up the preparations for the trial of Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac. The Trial Chamber will "soon" render its decision on the prosecutor's motion to amend the Operation Storm indictment

The amended indictment against Croatian Army generals Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac will be submitted to the Chamber by 10 November 2005, with new allegations about the "colonization of Krajina" and a plan to "psychologically intimidate" the Serbs. The issue of the legality of Operation Storm is "irrelevant" for the case of the two accused generals, in the judges' view

After his arrest last night in the Canary Islands, General Ante Gotovina should be in the UN Detention Unit within 72hours. Only six people remain fugitives from international justice

Two days after his transfer to the UN Detention Unit from Spain, General Ante Gotovina pleaded not guilty to seven counts in the indictment. His lawyer Luka Misetic says that the general's "message on every count of the indictment is, 'I am not the man who is guilty'…"

The trial of three Croatian generals, Ante Gotovina, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac, charged with crimes committed in the course of Operation Storm and afterwards, will begin on 7 May 2007. The reasons presented by the defense for the postponement of the trial were not considered "convincing" by pre-trial judge

If the Trial Chamber orders the indictment for Operation Storm to be reduced, the prosecution will comply with the order by downsizing geographical and time frame of the indictment against Gotovina, Cermak and Markac by one third

Pre-trial Chamber hearing the case against the three Croatian generals charged with the crimes in and after Operation Storm decides to keep the accused Ivan Cermak in the UN Detention Unit. Mladen Markac, another accused in the same case, has been released pending trial. He might go into the trial without one of his lawyers

Pointing to the potential conflict of interest between the defense teams of the three Croatian generals charged with Operation Storm crimes, the prosecution calls for “pre-emptive action” on the part of the Trial Chamber. Waiting for "the conflict to crystallize" might lead to irreparable damage, the prosecution warns

The Trial Chamber took into account Cermak's admission he had done wrong and his claim that it had not been his intention to treat the ICTY with disrespect. The Chamber decided to grant him provisional release pending trial. The accused was cautioned that any violations of the terms of his provisional release would lead to its immediate revocation

The Trial Chamber issued a formal decision finding General Markac’s defense counsel "in a conflict of interest" because of his "personal interest" in the Operation Storm case. Also, it is highly likely that he will be called to testify. Separovic has persistently refused to withdraw from the case. Tomorrow he will be invited to explain why, in his view, the Trial Chamber should not institute proceedings against him for the violation of legal ethics

Mladen Markac's defense counsel denies any "personal interest" in the Operation Storm case and refuses to withdraw from the case. Today's hearing dealt with the motions filed by General Gotovina's defense. Legal arguments were exchanged on the motion challenging the jurisdiction of the Tribunal and alleging defects in the form of the indictments in the case against the three Croatian generals

Confirming the last week’s finding that Separovic was in a conflict of interest, the Trial Chamber concludes that Miroslav Separovic, attorney from Zagreb. is “no longer eligible” to represent General Mladen Markac, ordering the accused to immediately engage new counsel

The Trial Chamber dismissed both interlocutory appeals filed by Ante Gotovina’s defense and a joint appeal filed by Ivan Cermak’s and Mladen Markac’s defense teams challenging the jurisdiction of the Tribunal in the Operation Storm case

The Trial Chamber granted in part the preliminary motion in which the defense alleged defects in the form of the indictment, ordering the prosecution to specify and clarify a number of counts in the indictment against three Croatian Army generals

The trial of three Croatian general charged with crimes committed during Operation Storm and in its aftermath is delayed because there still are unresolved issues related to the defense teams of Mladen Markac and Ivan Cermak

The Trial Chamber in charge of the pre-trial proceedings in the Operation Storm case decides with a majority of votes that Cedo Prodanovic and Jadranko Slokovic could not continue defending the accused Ivan Cermak, because there exists a conflict of interest. A month ago, the Chamber ordered Miroslav Separovic to withdraw as Mladen Markac’s defense counsel for the same reason

Ante Gotovina’s defense team wants an opportunity to present oral arguments on his appeal against the decision dismissing his motion on the jurisdiction of the Tribunal in the Operation Storm case at a hearing. The trial has now been officially postponed

All three generals accused of the crimes committed during and after Operation Storm were present at the status conference today. Following the Chamber's order to suspend their provisional release, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac joined Ante Gotovina in the UN Detention Unit

The Pre-trial Chamber denied Ante Gotovina’s motion for provisional release. The Croatian general will remain in the UN Detention Unit until the start of the trial ‘because of his proven ability and determination to avoid arrest’

In its appeal against the decision of the Trial Chamber to deny Ante Gotovina’s motion for provisional release, the defense points out that the accused general has no reason to avoid trial as ‘the prosecution has no evidence” to substantiate the charges against him

The Appeals Chamber dismisses the appeal filed by General Ante Gotovina and Croatian government against the decision of the Trial Chamber from November 2007. The Trial Chamber had dismissed his request for provisional release pending trial

The trial of three Croatian generals, Ante Gotovina, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac, is slated to open on 11 March 2008, but this might change, depending on the availability of judges and courtrooms. There are some other considerations

On the eve of the start of the trial, scheduled for tomorrow, all the parties in the Operation Storm case met today in the courtroom in The Hague. All the members of the Trial Chamber, and complete prosecution and defense teams attended the conference, together with the three accused – Gotovina, Cermak and Markac

In the opening statement at the beginning of Operation Storm trial, the prosecution emphasizes that the crimes against Serbian civilians, of which Gotovina, Cermak and Markac are accused, were not committed in the ‘heat of the battle’. Nor were they ‘the unavoidable and isolated consequence of the armed conflict’. Ante Gotovina’s defense will deliver its opening statement tomorrow

General Ante Gotovina's defense denies the prosecution argument about the excessive shelling of Knin and forcible expulsion of civilian population. They admit crimes were committed, but not as many as the indictment alleges. The defense notes that civilian authorities assumed responsibility for security in that area on 6 August 1995 while Gotovina returned to his ‘main task’, which was to stop Mladic’s VRS

In the period covered by the indictment against Gotovina, Cermak and Markac, protected witness 136 was a field interpreter in the UN headquarters in Knin. This was where evacuation lists were made up two months before Operation Storm. According to the defense, this caused fear among the civilian population

Protected witness 136 testifying at the trial of Gotovina, Cermak and Markac claims that for her, the encounters with Croatian soldiers after Operation Storm were much worse than the encounters with the police. She worked as an interpreter for UN observers; their teams were stopped at army checkpoints and prevented from entering villages so that they would not see the evidence of crimes against Serb civilians

In the examination-in-chief of protected witness ‘6’, the prosecutor showed footage of the shelling of Knin on 4 August 1995; in response, General Gotovina’s defense showed a recording of Milosevic’s famous speech at Gazimestan on 27 June 1989 and the footage of the ‘people’s rallies’ in the village of Kosovo in Dalmatia 11 days later

At the beginning of the Operation Storm, on 4 August 1995, a single tall and thick plume of smoke was shot from seven different angles by the cameraman and director working for Zastava Film, a production company of the former JNA and VJ, to create an impression of seven smoke clouds in different locations in Knin

Edward Flynn, head of the UN Human Rights Action Team, began his evidence at the trial of Croatian generals charged with crimes in Operation Storm. From 7 August to 17 August 1995, he witnessed the looting, arson, destruction and discovery of bodies of civilians killed in Sector South in Krajina

In his cross-examination of the prosecution witness Edward Flynn the defense counsel of Ivan Cermak noted that, as the commander of the ‘Knin Garrison’, Cermak was authorized to ‘coordinate’ civil and military police and civilian authorities and not to issue them orders. Cermak also had the power to ensure functioning of public utilities and in particular to ‘help the UN’

Noting that the RSK authorities were responsible for the exodus of Serbs from Krajina in August 1995, General Ante Gotovina's defense counsel reminded the prosecution witness Edward Flynn that in a previous statement he had talked about ‘a well-organized movement’ of the refugees. The witness amended his statement, saying that it was better to say the movement was ‘orderly’

Prosecution witness contends 120 bodies were brought to the Knin Hospital on the first day of Operation Storm. According to the Croatian MUP document presented by the defense, there were sixteen dead bodies in the hospital morgue when the Croatian forces entered the building on 5 August 1995

UN military observer testifying for the prosecution analyzed the craters of the six shells that hit a residential area. In his cross-examination, Ante Gotovina’s defense argued that those six shells were fired from positions held by the Serbian Army of Krajina in the afternoon of 5 August 1995, since by that time there were not many Serbs left in Knin

Croatian soldiers or civilians who burned down Serbian houses and looted them, ‘weren’t on foot as they did it’; the Croatian authorities could easily have prevented it by posting check points along the roads in Krajina, former UN military observer Tor Munkelien contends

In his evidence at the trial of Croatian generals for crimes committed in the course of Operation Storm and its aftermath, Andries Dreyer, former security coordinator in the UN Knin base, described how Croatian soldiers drove over dead bodies in a tank. The bodies were those of persons killed in a mortar shell attack on the crowd that had gathered in front of the UN base on 5 August 1995

General Andrew Leslie, former chief of staff of UNCRO in Sector South, began his evidence today. General Leslie is now the commander of the Canadian ground forces. He is testifying at the trial of Croatian generals Ante Gotovina, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac about the first days of Operation Storm

In a ruthless cross-examination, General Gotovina’s defense counsel tries to discredit the prosecution witness, Canadian general Andrew Leslie. According to General Gotovina’s defense, Leslie is responsible for the charges of excessive shelling of Knin

According to Canadian general Andrew Leslie, military professionals in the UN peace-keeping forces found the target selection of the Croatian artillery in Knin on 4 August and 5 August 1995 ‘puzzling and baffling’

Mile Sovilj recognized his father’s ‘decomposed and burned’ dead body on a photo. His father had been killed in the village of Kijani near Gracac in Operation Storm. ‘It was a picture painful to see’, the witness said. When the shelling of Gracac began, he fled to Serbia. The defense notes that the evacuation of Serbian population from Krajina was planned

Mikhail Ermolaev, former acting chief UN military observer claims that general Cermak ’arrogantly denied’ reports and protests of the international observers relating to violations of human rights of Krajina Serbs in August 1995. The defense notes that Cermak didn’t have authority over the police or control over the whole Krajina territory

Ante Gotovina’s defense counsel contested the credibility of Mikhail Ermolaev claims that the shelling of Knin was ’unprecedented’ and that 13,600 Serbian houses were destroyed during and after Operation Storm in the summer of 1995

According to a report drafted in November 1995 by prosecution witness Kari Anttila, out of 22,000 houses the UN patrols visited in Sector South in Krajina, 8,000 houses were destroyed totally and 9,000 houses sustained some damage. The most common cause of damage or destruction was fire: a total of 13,000 houses were burned down

In the cross-examination of Kari Anttila, former UN military observer in Sector South, the defense teams of the Croatian generals charged with crimes committed in the course of Operation Storm and in its aftermath challenge the reliability of the information on to the destruction of houses in the Knin Krajina contained in the final UN report drafted by the witness

A Serb from Krajina testifies at the trial of Gotovina, Cermak and Markac with image distortion and under a pseudonym as protective measures, describing the shelling of his village near Knin and the killing, looting and burning of houses after the Croatian forces entered the village

Vladimir Gojanovic, president of Croatian Association of Demobilized Veterans from the Croatian Homeland War, testifies at the Trial of generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac about the crimes the Croatian forces committed during Operation Storm in August 1995

Ante Gotovina’s defense counsel claims witness Vladimir Gojanovic, former Croatian Army soldier, was not a member of the 113th Sibenik brigade and didn’t even participate in Operation Storm. The defense challenges other parts of the statement where the witness describes how he witnessed the houses being set on fire, the looting of property, the abuse of civilians and the murder of a prisoner of war during Operation Storm

Witness Vladimir Gojanovic submitted to the Trial Chamber documents that, he alleges, ‘confirm that he was a member of the 113th Sibenik Brigade’ and that he participated in Operation Storm. As his cross-examination continued today, Ante Gotovina’s defense counsel again challenged his claims

Jan Elleby, former chief of the UN civilian police, claims that he regularly reported the crimes in the Knin area to the Croatian authorities but neither the army nor the police did anything to investigate them. Ivan Cermak’s defense counsel noted that crimes were investigated, but the witness ’was not informed’ about the efforts

Based on a UN report from September 1995, Ante Gotovina’s defense counsel implies that ‘Croats returning back to Knin after Operation Storm’ might be responsible for the burning down of houses and looting of property. Jan Elleby, former chief of the UN civilian police, replies that ‘the military observers might have gotten this impression, but not the civilian police’

In his description of the situation in Krajina in the aftermath of Operation Storm, Canadian officer Jeffrey Hill said that Serbian houses were looted by soldiers, police and civilians. The worst situation, he said, was in the village of Kistanje near Benkovac on 8 August 1995 where Croatian soldiers ’moved in’

Prosecution witness Hill estimated in his examination-in-chief that ’hundreds and hundreds of shells’ landed on Knin on 4 August 1995. General Ante Gotovina’s defense challenges this estimate, showing him a report by the UN military observers estimating that 350 to 450 shells were fired that day from 5am to 10:40am. The witness thinks this estimate is ’too low’

Describing the situation in Krajina during Operation Storm, former commander of the UN Canadian Battalion says the Serbian houses were systemically looted and burned down ’day by day, four weeks in a row, non-stop’. During that time, both the Croatian army and the police did nothing except to restrict the movement of UN personnel since they didn’t want to ’have them as witnesses’

Edmond Vanderostyne, reporter for Belgian daily Standard, recounted that he saw members of the Croatian armed forces looting and setting on fire houses in Krajina a few days after Operation Storm. In his words, he saw Croatian soldiers behave as Serbian soldiers did in other parts of the former Yugoslavia he visited as a reporter

Canadian general Alain Forand, former commander of UN forces in Sector South in Krajina, testifies about protest letters he sent to the two of the three Croatian generals in the dock. He protested against the arson, looting, murders and theft of UN equipment in the wake of Operation Storm

In his reply to the defense claim that he cooperated well with Ivan Cermak, Alain Forand, former commander of the UN forces in Krajina, confirmed that the Croatian general was ’cordial and civilized’ but nevertheless didn’t do anything to prevent the arson and looting of the houses belonging to Serbs who fled, in spite of numerous warnings by UN representatives

Refuting the claims of Alain Forand, former commander of the UN Sector South, that the Croatian military and civilian authorities failed to do anything to prevent the looting and arson of Serb houses during Operation Storm and in its aftermath, General Ivan Cermak’s defense counsel showed a series of police and military documents where demands are made to put a stop to the crimes and punish the perpetrators

Ante Gotovina’s defense counsel claims that the reports drafted by the UN observers and soldiers about crimes against Serb civilians in August 1995 were exaggerated. Former commander of the UN troops in Krajina Alain Forand denies this claim three times

Testifying for the prosecution, Krajina Serb Jovan Vujinovic recounted why he refused to leave his village two times despite the fact that his house was burned down, his mother killed and all other villages decided to leave for Serbia

Peter Marti, former UN observer in Sector South in Krajina, says he and his colleagues had problems identifying the persons who looted Serb houses after Operation Storm since 'soldiers looked like brigands'. In his opinion, the looting could easily have been stopped regardless of who the perpetrators were

Mile Djuric, prosecution witness testifying at the trial of generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac, says he saw his father burned to death when he was thrown into a burning family workshop on 6 August 1995. The defense claimed that on that day the witness was not in his village

The OTP wants the judges to issue a subpoena to Croatia ordering it to deliver hundreds of military and police documents related to Operation Storm. The crimes generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac are charged with were committed during that operation

In his evidence at the Gotovina, Cermak and Markac trial, the first US ambassador to Croatia says Tudjman believed that all countries including Croatia had to be ethnically homogenous, seeing Serbs as a ‘threat’ to this ideal. Galbraith then explained why he said there had been no ethnic cleansing in Operation Storm, although there had been crimes, committed ‘either on the orders or with the tacit approval of the Croatian leadership’, in the presence and with the participation of the military

In his evidence at the trial of Gotovina, Cermak and Markac Ambassador Peter Galbraith says he thought the expulsion of Serbs from Krajina was not the objective of Operation Storm, but it was its consequence, one that Tudjman did want, one that made him ’happy’

Not contesting the fact that by 2000 some 40,000 Serbs who had fled after Operation Storm returned to Croatia, former US ambassador notes that it didn't happen because Tudjman wanted the Serbs back, but because of the American and European pressure. 'We twisted Tudjman's arm...', says Peter Galbraith

In the re-examination of Ambassador Galbraith, prosecution shows transcripts from two meetings of the Croatian leadership in August 1995. Tudjman wants the Serb property to be confiscated, but his chief of staff Sarinic and the interior minister Jarnjak are trying to work out a mechanism to prevent the Serbs from returning. The defense challenges the authenticity of those documents

Joseph Bellerose, former UN soldier in Krajina, says there was no military justification for the ‘random fire at random intervals’ targeting Knin. He is giving evidence at the trial of three Croatian generals charged with crimes in Operation Storm. He concludes that the objective was to intimidate civilians and force them to leave, not solely to defeat the RSK forces

At the trial for crimes committed in Operation Storm, the prosecution is trying to prove that the Serb civilians fled Krajina spontaneously, on their own, while the defense of the three Croatian generals contends their exodus was organized, and proceeded according to a previously arranged evacuation plan

Zdravko Janic, commander of the Croatian MUP special police, claims that he didn’t know about the killing of Serb civilians in the village of Grubori in Krajina on 25 August 1995 despite the fact that he was the coordinator of the mop-up operations in that area. Mladen Markac, the commander of the special police, never asked Janic to report on the events in Grubori, Janic says

Zdravko Janic, former coordinator of the Croatian special police, now its commander, admits he saw houses in flames in August 1995 in the village of Ramljani in Krajina. He contends that they were set on fire when they were hit in the fighting with the remaining Serb forces some twenty days after Operation Storm ended

Although his intention to change sides and testify for the defense instead of the prosecution was thwarted, Zdravko Janic agreed with every argument put to him by the defense counsel of Mladen Markac, his predecessor at the post of commander of the Croatian special police

Describing the shelling of Knin on 4 and 5 August 1995 Canadian captain Alain Gilbert says that – judging from what he saw from his office in the UN Sector South Command – it was his impression that the artillery did not engage military targets; the town was shelled randomly, he said

Describing her meetings with Croatian officials in 1995, former UN special rapporteur for human rights Elisabeth Rehn noted that Croatian defense minister ’didn’t like her or her reports’ while president Franjo Tudjman showed no interest in the return of refugees and prosecution of those who committed crimes

Elisabeth Rehn completed her evidence at the trial of Croatian generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac, commenting that none of the defense counsel found it appropriate during the two-day cross-examination to ask her about the murder of Serb civilians in the village of Grubori on 25 August 1995 she talked about in her examination-in chief

The Croatian ambassador to the Netherlands appeared in court today to present Croatia’s views on the prosecution motion asking the Trial Chamber to issue a subpoena for the delivery of hundreds of military and police documents about Operation Storm. He said it would be ‘unnecessary and counterproductive’ because an enquiry into the matter was underway. The prosecutor contends that the enquiry is deficient, adding that so far he hasn’t heard a reasonable explanation for ‘the absence of documents which is systematic rather than accidental or isolated’

Alun Roberts, former UN press officer in Krajina, survived Gotovina’s death threats. In his evidence as a prosecution witness today, Roberts offered his explanation why the Croatian general called him ‘a spy and agent provocateur’

In an effort to show why Gotovina called prosecution witness Alun Roberts ’a spy and agent provocateur’ in September 1995, defense counsel Luka Misetic presents a document in which the SVK intelligence service says that ‘partial control of his activities’ has been established

The 'spy affair' with the former UN press officer Alun Roberts ended on the last day of his evidence when it was revealed that he was not an informer of the RSK intelligence service: it was in fact Predrag Sare, an interpreter in the UN mission in Krajina, who worked under the codename Student. Roberts himself was accused of being a RSK spy by Gotovina in September 1995

British liaison officer Roland Dangerfield claims Knin and other places in Krajina were systematically looted by the Croatian Army and the special police. Eighty to ninety percent of villages he visited in the weeks after Operation Storm were partially or completely burned down

Prosecution witness contends that Krajina fell in Croatian hands without a fight after only two days; the shelling of villages and towns was not necessary. The defense wants to prove that the Serb resistance was ‘strong’, and the fighting ‘fierce’. The trial of Gotovina, Cermak and Markac is adjourned until 25 August 2008

Erik Widen, former Swedish UN civilian observer in Krajina, claims that some 50 to 100 military trucks passed by the UN base in Knin in the days following Operation Storm. The trucks were loaded with looted furniture and electronic devices. Widen rejects the defense argument that the goods were taken from the barracks abandoned by the Krajina Serb army

In his evidence at the trial of generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac, Croatian Serb Milan Ilic recounts how he escaped from the hands of Croatian soldiers just before four old people were killed. One of them was Ilic’s brother

Canadian intelligence officer Philip Roy Berikoff contends that the destruction of Serb property in Krajina during Operation Storm was planned in order to prevent the Serbs from coming back. He corroborates his allegation by quoting a high-ranking Croatian police officer who told Berikoff that the objective of the ‘clean-up operation’ was to prevent ‘Chetniks, i.e., all the Serbs, from ever returning to Krajina’

According to General Gotovina's defense, it is 'illogical' to claim that the Croatian Army troops took part in the burning and destruction of abandoned Serb houses because at that time Croatia had problems finding housing for the refugees from other parts of country: they could have been put up in those houses. According to prosecution witness Philip Berikoff, the only explanation for this 'illogical behavior' could be the effort to prevent the Serb refugees from coming back

The defense counsel of Croatian generals Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac today tried to prove that Major Juric was not their clients’ subordinate. According to prosecution witness Berikoff, in August 1995 Major Juric wanted to prevent 'Chetniks' – all Serbs – from returning to Krajina. The defense counsel claim that Major Juric was under the command of the HV Military Police

The man who commanded the clean-up operation in the Plavno Valley recounts at the Gotovina, Cermak and Markac trial how things he never heard or seen got into his report about the operation. On 25 August 1995 the village of Grubori in the Plavno Valley was burned down and five elderly Serbs were killed

In his cross-examination at the trial of Gotovina, Cermak and Markac, the man who commanded the Croatian special units’ operation in the village of Grubori maintained that he never doubted his superiors when they told him that the civilians from that village had been killed in cross-fire. He put this in his report although he knew that there had been no clashes at all. The presiding judge asked him if he would have followed his superior's order if he were told to put in his report that it was a nighttime operation even though it was actually daytime

Former UN staff member in Knin, Swedish police officer Laila Malm claims that the Croatian police repeatedly prevented her from visiting the Orthodox graveyard in Gracac in September 1995. According to her, every day new graves were dug there. Malm made no comments when Gotovina's defense counsel put it to her that access to the graveyard was prohibited to prevent looting

In his testimony at the trial of generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac, Soren Liborius, former member of the EU monitoring mission in Krajina, contends that in August 1995 Crotian forces burned and destroyed Serb property ‘far more professionally’ than the Serb troops did when they targeted Croat houses in Krajina in 1991

Soren Liborius, Danish member of the EC monitoring mission in Krajina described how at a meeting in late October 1999 General Gotovina 'tacitly agreed' with the conclusion that Croatian soldiers had perpetrated crimes. However, in his cross-examination he admitted that this allegation was 'not completely true'; it was only partially correct

In his reports, Soren Liborius, former EU monitor, described the situation in Krajina in the aftermath of Operation Storm as 'anarchy'. Ante Gotovina’s defense counsel tried to turn this to his client’s favor, claiming the term 'anarchy' implied 'lack of governmental control'. The witness replied that what he meant was 'lack of normalcy' coupled with widespread looting and destruction; that, he said, didn’t exclude government’s involvement

When Gotovina's defense counsel asked him why he didn't report the arson and the looting to the HV Military Police, former EU monitor Soren Liborius replied that he saw no reason to do that, when military police were those who destroyed the abandoned Serb houses. As Liborius put it, their commander had to be 'blind' not to know about those crimes

After the testimony of a protected witness testifying as Witness 1, the trial of generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac was opened to the public just as the hearing today drew to a close. The prosecutor then read the summary of the statement given by Richard Linton, former UN Television cameraman. In August 1995, Linton filmed the bodies of elderly Serbs killed in the village of Grubori, Krajina

The defense is trying to prove Cermak was a businessman sent by Tudjman to Knin after Operation Storm to help deal with civil affairs. Richard Lyntton, testifying for the prosecution, repeats his claim from his examination-in chief saying that the accused general was the 'military governor' of the Knin area. He was aware of only one business Cermak ran – a chain of brothels in Croatia

In his statement to the OTP investigators, former officer in the Croatian military police stated that his company had been under the command of Ivan Cermak. In the evidence in the cross-examination today, Bosko Djolic said that in his view this claim was not true

Former European monitor Lennart Leschly noted in his report in August 1995 that Operation Storm resulted in the expulsion of 200,000 Serbs from Krajina. Croatia thus ‘gained what it wanted – land without people’. Gotovina’s defense counsel stressed that ‘land without people’ was an expression the witness heard from Milan Martic and then used. This claim made the witness laugh out loud

Former chief of the Zadar criminal investigations division began his evidence today at the trial of Croatian generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac by renouncing parts of his statements to OTP investigators. He claims he never described Croatian soldiers after Operation Storm as 'very cocky and confident'’; what he said was they were ‘happy and proud’ and there was a mistake in the translation

During his second day in court, former chief of the Zadar criminal investigation division Ive Kardum continued contesting the claims he had made in his statements to the OTP investigators in 2004 and 2007. Kardum told the investigators that he himself was afraid of Croatian soldiers. Today, contrary to that, he said that the remaining local Serbs had ‘lots of nice things to say’ about those soldiers when he spoke to them

Croatian police officer Ive Kardum contends that persons suspected of looting Serb property after Operation Storm were stopped at check points located throughout Krajina. When the criminal investigation was over, they were given back the stolen property to safeguard it pending the completion of trial

Canadian intelligence officer Robert Williams is testifying at the trial of the Croatian generals charged with crimes during and after Operation Storm. He says he watched Croatian soldiers from the UN base in Knin where he was, carrying items he didn’t expect to see in the hands of the soldiers: TV sets and other appliances

Dutchman Eric Hendricks claims every time European monitors brought him reports about crimes against Serbs and their property General Ivan Markac promised he would take measures to prevent such incidents. However, the promises were ’not quite’ being put to practice

The defense teams of Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac do not deny the crimes against Serbs in Krajina and their property in the days following Operation Storm. However, they maintain the crimes could not have been prevented because ‘the surprisingly quick military victory’ left a power vacuum in its wake

Rajko Gusa, former member of the Krajina Serb army, disagrees with the Gotovina’s defense’s claim that after Operation Storm Serb houses were destroyed by local Croats returning to their homes, and not by soldiers. His neighbors are ’honorable people’, Gusa says. Crimes were committed by ’some other Croats’

Former Croatian MUP coordinator for the Knin District, Stjepan Buhin today repudiated parts of the previous statements he gave to the OTP investigators where he accused HV personnel of looting Serb houses after Operation Storm. In his testimony today he said this was ‘a nasty statement’ he would not dare repeat today

Former Croatian MUP coordinator Stjepan Buhin continues his evidence at the trial of generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac. Today he recounted how in late August 1995 the top police officials told him to stop investigating the murder of five Serb civilians in the village of Grubori and focus on the ‘establishing public order and traffic issues’

In his statement to the OTP investigators former Croatian MUP coordinator for the Knin District Stjepan Buhin said that the looted goods were transported in the Croatian Army vehicles. Today however he stated that this was merely the rumor, adding that the goods might have been legitimately confiscated for military needs which were ‘substantial’ at the time

Contrary to several previous insider witnesses at the trial of Croatian generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac, who renounced the statements they had given to the OTP investigators once they got in the courtroom, Davor Simic, former member of the Croatian military police, renounced his statement before he even entered the courtroom by giving ‘additional explanations’ to Ante Gotovina’s defense investigators

Former CID inspector in the military police Damir Simic today explained why criminal reports were not filed against Croatian soldiers who had looted goods seized from them after Operation Storm. There was not enough physical evidence against the perpetrators because they were caught with looted goods in their possession, but not at the scene as they did the looting, Simic said

Describing the situation in Knin following the arrival of the Croatian forces in August 1995, Murray Dawes said that personal belongings of the Serbs who had fled the town was taken out of their houses. Worthless items were neatly placed in one spot, and various appliances and other valuables were put in another area and were then taken away by military trucks. Dawes served as a civilian logistics officer in the UN at the time

Gotovina’s defense counsel tried to prove today that on their arrival in Knin after Operation Storm Croatian soldiers confiscated goods from government and military facilities. The witness maintained that the goods were looted from civilian apartments. The witness saw the military police stopping soldiers and civilians at check-points but never saw any stolen property taken from them

When the defense of General Ivan Cermak put it to the witness that loaded vehicles with no licence plates moving around Krajina after Operation Storm didn’t necessarily transport looted goods, former employee of the Helsinki Human Rights Federation William Hayden remarked that it didn’t look as if the soldiers in the vehicles had just been to the shopping mall

Prosecution witness Mirko Ognjenovic, an 87-year old ethnic Serb, sustained ‘only’ light injuries to the head when soldiers in camouflage uniforms entered the village of Kakanj near Kistanje in Krajina. Ognjenovic thought he would die; he survived but his neighbors, Uros Ognjenovic and Uros Saric, were murdered

Ante Gotovina’s defense claims that the prosecutor has at least fifty of the 158 ’artillery documents’ it claims have been ’taken away or hidden’ in the course of Operation The Hague conducted by the Croatian intelligence services

After a two-week break, the trial of Croatian generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac continues with the evidence of Ljiljana Botteri, legal affairs assistant to the commander of the Split Military District, and Milica Djuric, 76-year old woman whose husband was burned alive at their family property in the village of Djurici in Krajina in August 1995

In her statements to OTP investigators, Ljiljana Botteri, General Gotovina's former legal affairs assistant, claimed that the Split Military District commander was issuing orders to the military police during and after Operation Storm. In her statement to the defense, she ’corrected’ herself saying that Gotovina was in charge of all military police affairs except for crime prevention and identification of perpetrators

Witness Botteri has agreed with defense counsel Misetic that General Gotovina had the power only to punish a soldier who set a house on fire or looted property without permission in disciplinary proceedings, for going AWOL, while others were responsible for criminal prosecution of culprits. Gotovina’s primary task was ‘to protect the troops’ army, not to punish individuals’

Former European monitor in Krajina Soren Liborius came back to The Hague to complete his evidence at the trial of generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac. After his re-examination, the court went into closed session during the testimony of a ‘very important witness’

Former public prosecutor from Sibenik, Zeljko Zganjer, contends that by 2001, the Croatian investigators had not received any information helpful for the investigation of the murders in the village of Grubori in Krajina from general Mladen Markac and his deputy Zeljko Sacic. Markac and Sacic, according to Zganjer, stubbornly claimed that the five elderly people had been killed in a clash between the Croatian special police and remnants of the Krajina Serb army

Former public prosecutor from Sibenik Zeljko Zganjer explains why he stopped his investigation of the Croatian soldiers who had admitted they had killed 17 Serb civilians in the Krajina villages of Gosici and Varivode in mid-August 1995

Former public prosecutor from Sibenik Zeljko Zganjer has agreed with the defense that he had no knowledge of General Markac obstructing the investigation into the murder of five elderly Serbs in the village of Grubori in August 1995. Zganjer nevertheless emphasized that he ’absolutely couldn’t understand how such an incident’ could remain unreported for years and why the investigation was not launched before March 2001

Retired colonel Kosta Novakovic claims the leadership of the former Republika Srpska Krajina planned ’a temporary evacuation’ of the people from endangered municipalities and their transfer to Srb and Lapac. Ante Gotovina’s defense counsel tried to prove that both Srb and Lapac were on the route to Banja Luka, according to the evacuation plan

In an effort to prove that the evacuation of the Serbs from Krajina was planned before Operation Storm, defense counsel Luka Misetic has tendered into evidence video recordings of former RSK president Martic and Veritas president Savo Strbac, where they say things that favor General Gotovina's defense. This has prompted witness Kosta Novakovic to distance himself from his former colleagues in the Krajina government. They were saying ‘incompetent and arbitrary things’, he said

Ante Gotovina's defense counsel has tried to prove that the shelling of Knin in August 1995 was directed at military, not civilian targets. In his evidence for the prosecution, retired colonel of the Krajina Serb army Kosta Novakovic has maintained that there were no legitimate military targets in the town: there are reasons why even the barracks could not be targeted

Maria Teresa Mauro, former civil affairs official in the UN mission in Krajina claims that in the aftermath of Operation Storm the Croatian authorities did not respond to reports they received from international observers about crimes against Serbs. As time went by, the property of the people who fled was completely destroyed and looted and Serbs ‘didn’t even think’ about coming back. As the witness alleges, General Ivan Cermak was ‘the highest representative’ of the authorities in the Krajina area

Belgian military expert Reynaud Theunens contends that Gotovina’s experience from BH meant he was aware that in Operation Storm soldiers under his command could again commit the crimes they had committed in Grahovo and Glamoc. When this indeed happened, Theunens alleges, General Gotovina was regularly informed about all the crimes

As he continues his evidence at the trial of the three Croatian generals, Belgian military expert Reynaud Theunens says that measures taken by Ante Gotovina, Split Military District commander, to prevent the looting and arson in Krajina ’were not effective’. Failing to take measures against perpetrators ‘incites’ further crimes

In the cross-examination of prosecution military expert Reynaud Theunens, General Gotovina's defense tried to contest the findings in his report about who was in command of the HV military police in Krajina after Operation Storm

The defense of the accused Croatian general continues denying that the military police was subordinate to Gotovina, but the prosecution military expert remains adamant that Gotovina ‘exercised operational command’ over those units while Mate Lausic, military police administration chief, was at the top of the ‘professional chain’ of command

Defense counsel Luka Misetic and prosecution military expert Reynaud Theunens disagreed today over what General Ante Gotovina meant when he said at the Brijuni meeting that he had soldiers in his units who were ‘difficult to keep on a leash’. Misetic and Theunens argued if it meant that the soldiers’ morale was high or that they wanted revenge

The defense has not denied that General Ante Gotovina was authorized to institute disciplinary proceedings against members of HV troops. It has denied that as the commander of the ’occupying force’ in BH, Gotovina had the same authority over HVO units

Referring to military intelligence documents, General Cermak’s defense has implied that immediately after Operation Storm the Knin Garrison command was not able to operate properly as chaos reigned in Krajina. The prosecution military expert replied that in the large volume of Croatian Army documents dealing with the period he was unable to find a single report where Cermak complained about problems in doing his job

After having mentioned yesterday evening for the first time that he had met with the members of the OTP team when drafting of his report was coming to its close, military expert Reynaud Theunens was warned today that 'he was not fully sincere' in some of his previous replies. Cermak's defense counsel attempted to prove that the witness changed some parts of his expert report after the intervention of the prosecutor

As the cross-examination of the prosecution military witness continues, the defense has tried to prove that after Operation Storm General Cermak had only 'civilian powers', taking care of various issues ranging from water supply to procuring prosciutto to be served at meetings with foreign delegations

General Ivan Cermak’s defense has tried to prove that after Operation Storm ended, a number of civilian and military police reports never reached the Knin Garrison. Prosecution military expert Reynaud Theunens has admitted that he was surprised to see that some of those documents were not addressed to the accused general

Defense counsel Kay has tried to prove that after Operation Storm Ivan Cermak had no legal authority to investigate crimes in Krajina and to prosecute perpetrators. Reynaud Theunens, prosecution military expert, replied that the accused general should have been ‘active’

Prosecution military expert Reynaud Theunens disagreed with the defense of the former special police commander and its attempt to prove that not all Croatian special units were under his ‘discipline and command’ authority in the time of the Operation Storm and after it

In the additional cross-examination of prosecution expert Reynaud Theunens, Ante Gotovina’s defense has tried to prove that after Operation Storm Gotovina didn’t have command authority over the Knin Garrison and its commander Ivan Cermak. Josip Turkalj, former commander of the Lucko Anti-Terrorist Unit, has begun his evidence

Former commander of the Lucko Anti-terrorist Unit Josip Turkalj says that in late August 1995 he was present at a discussion where it was said that the murder of elderly Serb civilians in the Krajina village of Grubori should be depicted as random incident in which civilians got killed in cross-fire ‘regardless of whether it’s true or not’

Former commander of the Lucko unit of the Croatian special police maintains that today, 13 years after the murder of five elderly civilians in the village of Grubori in Krajina, he 'doesn’t have specific information' that it was a crime and who committed it. The witness denies that the Croatian police leadership ordered a cover-up or the incident in the village of Grubori

Hussein Al-Alfi, highest ranking civilian representative of the UN mission in Krajina, claims that in August and September 1995 he and Sector South commander General Forand regularly reported numerous crimes in Krajina to the Knin ‘military governor’, Ivan Cermak. After that, the witness said, the things changed because there were ‘no more houses left to burn and loot’

In an attempt to show that Ivan Cermak was aware of the widespread looting of abandoned houses and apartments in Knin, Hussein Al-Alfi, former UN mission representative, has said that the Croatian general told him to remove the valuables from his apartment to the UN base; otherwise they might be stolen. The witness and the accused shared a ’virtual handshake" in the courtroom

Former UN civilian police member said in his statement to the OTP that it seemed to him that the HV members were ’systematically’ burning down houses in the Krajina villages. Now, in his cross-examination he said that with time he ’put two and two together’ and concluded that the soldiers ‘were out of control’ and were not ordered to commit crimes. The courtroom participants exchanged best wishes for Christmas

According to British pathologist John Clark, most of the 245 victims whose remains were exhumed from the Knin cemetery after Operation Storm were killed by firearms, in some cases by a single shot to a head. Gotovina’s defense counsel claims all were killed in combat

The British pathologist John Clark was wrong by 44 percent when he estimated the number of soldiers exhumed from the Knin city cemetery, the defense has claimed in the cross-examination of the prosecution expert witness. Clark made his estimate on the basis of the victim’s clothes. After Clark completed his testimony, the prosecutor called another expert witness, Dutch lieutenant-colonel Harry Konings

Harry Konings, a lieutenant-colonel in the Royal Dutch Army claims that what happened on 4 August 1995, when the Croatian Army launched its attack on Knin, was the same as what happened during the four years of siege in Sarajevo: the town was shelled ‘without a clear military purpose, to cause panic among the civilian population, making the enemy troops surrender and flee

In an effort to prove that the shelling of military targets in civilian areas is not against the military doctrine of all countries, General Ante Gotovina's defense counsel has referred to the 1956 US Manual on the Law of War. Harry Konings, a lieutenant-colonel in the Royal Dutch Army, pointed to differences between the American and Dutch approaches

Gotovina's defense counsel has tried to prove that Knin and other Krajina towns were shelled in Operation Storm in order to cut off the communications between Serb units and to spread panic among soldiers, not civilians. Dutch lieutenant colonel Harry Konings has not denied this claim; however, he has repeated his conclusion that the military targets in Knin were not worth causing panic among civilians and risking civilian casualties

The defense has tried to challenge the argument put forward by Dutch lieutenant-colonel Konings that General Ante Gotovina’s decision to launch an artillery attack on Knin in August 1995 was ‘perhaps the worst possible tactics’ because of substantial risk to civilians. Defense counsel Kehoe noted that the danger to the Knin residents would have been even greater if the infantry had entered town without a previous ‘artillery preparation’

On the last day of Harry Konings’ cross-examination, the defense has tried to prove that when Ante Gotovina issued his order to launch Operation Storm, he clearly indicated which military targets in Knin and other towns were to be shelled. However, the Dutch lieutenant-colonel has remained adamant: the vague wording used by the accused general ‘created preconditions’ for the shelling of civilian targets

Explaining why he wrote in the diary he kept during Operation Storm that he was ‘disgusted’ by what the Croatian Army was doing, former European monitor from Denmark Stig Marker Hansen said he thought at the time that the objective of the Croatian attack was to ‘take the RSK territory once it was empty of the Serb population’

In his daily report of 20 September 1995, European monitor Stig Marker Hansen noted that General Gotovina responded to reports about widespread looting and burning in Krajina with words, ‘it is only human to hate the enemy that expelled your family’. The witness took it to mean that for Gotovina ‘a certain degree of revenge was acceptable’

At the insistence of the defense teams representing generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac, former chief of the HV Military police Administration Mate Lausic started his evidence by describing the timeline of his meetings with OTP representatives since May 2004. The presiding judge then warned Lausic he was entitled to protection against ‘forcible self-incrimination’

Describing the situation in Krajina after Operation Storm, former military police administration chief Mate Lausic says that the military line of command was not functioning at the time. There were many men in uniform in the field, prone to crime, Lausic says. ‘Wretched is the army that must be disciplined by the military police, like a parent whose child is disciplined by the police’

Former Military Police Administration chief claims that General Gotovina and other commanders could have prevented the looting and arson after Operation Storm if they had ensured basic military discipline in their units down the chain of command. By way of an example, Lausic explained that a potential perpetrator could not commit a crime if he were prevented from taking a military vehicle without proper authorization, as the rules required

The defense has tried to prove that Lausic was not entirely correct when he said there was general awareness of the widespread looting and burning down of abandoned Serb houses in Krajina after Operation Storm among the top military people. According to defense counsel Misetic, General Gotovina was among those left in the dark. Former military police administration chief Mate Lausic has begged to differ

Describing the situation in Krajina in the summer of 1995 after Operation Storm, former military police administration chief Mate Lausic has said he ‘personally arrested dozens of HV personnel’. During his visit to Krajina, Lausic has claimed, he could have loaded a bus full of detainees in one hour…if only he had had it at his disposal

In the statement he gave to the OTP investigators, retired HV general Mate Lausic maintained that General Ivan Cermak was also in command of the military police in Krajina after Operation Storm. One company from the 72nd Military Police Battalion was subordinated to Cermak

Concluding his evidence at the trial of Gotovina, Cermak and Markac, retired general Mate Lausic says he has always told the truth, regardless of his status: witness, suspect ‘or maybe at some later time, as an accused’. Why was defense minister Susak described as a man of ‘few words and fierce grimaces’?

In his evidence as a prosecution witness at the trial of Croatian generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac, former president of the Croatian Helsinki Committee Zarko Puhovski has said that there were ‘very serious violations of human rights’ during and after Operation Storm – hundreds of civilians were killed and thousands were expelled from their homes. This has led Puhovski to conclude that the ‘effects of Operation Storm were tantamount to ethnic cleansing’

According to Croatian professor Zarko Puhovski, who continues his evidence at the trial of generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac, crimes against Serbs who didn’t flee Krajina after Operation Storm showed that the fear of those who had fled on time – before the arrival of the Croatian Army – was ‘absolutely real’ although it was based on false premises and Serbian media propaganda

In his cross-examination of Zarko Puhovski, professor from Zagreb, defense counsel Luka Misetic made effort to prove that members of the BH Army and the SVK were responsible for a number of Serb civilian victims, and not the Croatian Army

Zarko Puhovski, university professor from Zagreb, says that according to the Croatian Helsinki Committee estimate some 20,000 houses were partially or totally destroyed in Sectors South and North after Operation Storm. The witness denied the defense counsel’s allegation that the data from the HHO report were blown up in order to justify the money received from foreign donors

Former chief of artillery in the Split Military District Marko Rajcic said that general Gotovina knew that there was risk of ‘possible probable’ hitting civilian targets in the shelling of Knin. Because of that Rajcic allegedly ordered that artillery mistakes be reduced to a minimum.

Former artillery chief in the Split Military District Marko Rajcic contends the documents he drafted before Operation Storm envisaged the shelling of military targets in towns and villages in Knin area. In his opinion, the plans were complied with because the ‘army was disciplined’

In his testimony at the trial of generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac, former artillery chief in the Split Military District Marko Rajcic has told the court that the Croatian artillery tried to hit a number of locations where RSK president Milan Martic was on the first day of Operation Storm. This was done, Rajcic admitted, despite the fact that chances of actually hitting him were ‘very small’

The former artillery chief in the Split Military District Marko Rajic has said he was at the meeting on 31 July 1995 with President Tudjman at Brijuni. The witness has now denied everything that was said or rather recorded in the transcripts whose authenticity is challenged by the defense

After almost one year and 78 witnesses, the prosecution has rested its case at the trial of Croatian generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac. The hearing on motions to acquit the accused on some or all counts in the indictment is scheduled to take place from 19 to 25 March 2009. The defense called for a three-month adjournment of the trial

At the half-time of the trial for crimes committed during and after Operation Storm, the defense counsel call for the acquittal of General Ante Gotovina on all counts in the indictment. According to the defense, the prosecution has failed to call evidence which could lead to his conviction

The defense teams of the former Knin Garrison commander Ivan Cermak and Croatian Special Police chief Mladen Markac called for their acquittal on all charges in the indictment for crimes in Operation Storm. The prosecution has failed to call valid evidence on their participation in the joint criminal enterprise aimed at permanent elimination of Serbs from Krajina, they claim

In its response to the defense motions calling for the acquittal of generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac on all counts in the indictment for Operation Storm crimes, the prosecution contends that enough evidence was brought before the Trial Chamber to lead to a conviction of the three accused. Thirty-two names were deleted from the list of 374 victims

The defense teams of generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac believe that the prosecution failed to present valid arguments against their motion for the acquittal of the three accused on all charges. In the words of Gotovina’s defense counsel, the prosecution argument on the joint criminal enterprise is a ‘legal hodgepodge’ in which different allegations are mixed up on a wrong basis

In its closing address at the Rule 98 bis hearing, the prosecution once again opposed the defense motion for the acquittal of Croatian generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac at the ‘half-time’ of the trial for crimes during and after Operation Storm. If the Trial Chamber rejects the motion for the acquittal of the accused, the defense will open its case on 28 May 2009

The Trial Chamber has rejected the defense motion for the acquittal of generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac at the half-time of the trial on charges of crimes during and after Operation Storm. Taking the prosecution evidence ‘in the best light’, the judges have concluded that there was a joint criminal enterprise aimed at the permanent elimination of Serbs from Krajina

The Trial Chamber urges the European Union to respond to the claims of Ante Gotovina’s defense that they haven’t yet received about a hundred reports drafted by the European monitors during Operation Storm

Secretary-general of the Council of the EU has rejected accusations levied by Ante Gotovina’s defense that the Trial Chamber’s subpoena for the European monitors’ reports drafted during Operation Storm was not complied with. According to the OTP spokesperson, the Croatian authorities have failed to hand over the requested military and police documents, including those whose existence was confirmed by the very authorities last year, despite a subpoena issued by the judges

In their reply to Javier Solana’s letter about the ‘missing’ or ‘non-existent’ reports of the European monitors, Ante Gotovina’s defense wants the EU to conduct further enquiries. The defense has also brought up Solana’s potential conflict of interest; during Operation Storm, Solana claimed that the Croatian army had committed crimes by indiscriminate shelling

In his additional examination at the trial of generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac, commander of the HV artillery during Operation Storm Marko Rajcic contends that in August 1995 the artillery fired on specific military targets, although the prosecution showed him documents specifying ‘wider areas’ of various towns and villages as targets

The opening statement delivered by the defense of Ivan Cermak, one of three Croatian generals charged with crimes in Operation Storm, will call several military and police experts and a number of other witnesses to respond to ’groundless’ accusations that Cermak had a command role over the army and the police. Among Cermak’s defense witnesses are Croatian president Stjepan Mesic and Ciro Blazevic, BH football team manager and Franjo Tudjman’s close friend

The defense of former special police commander Mladen Markac denies the existence of a joint criminal enterprise aimed at expelling Serbs from Krajina, shifting the blame for the planning and implementation of the exodus on the RSK and Serbian leaderships. As the defense argues, there is no evidence that Markac perpetrated or covered up crimes during and after Operation Storm

Slobodan Lazarevic, former JNA counter-intelligence officer who testified as prosecution witness against Milosevic, is testifying at Operation Storm trial, confirming Ante Gotovina’s defense case: ‘fear of Croats’ was fomented among Krajina Serbs, there were no civilians among Krajina men, and the Serbian leadership ‘supported’ the Krajina exodus

In response to the prosecution questions, former Serbian intelligence officer Slobodan Lazarevic has said there were some statements on the Croatian side ‘that caused Serbs to feel ill at ease’, but those were just ‘isolated moments’, not obvious propaganda. The Krajina authorities then used those isolated incidents in its campaign to intimidate

Former Croatian justice minister and Tudjman deputy chief of staff Vesna Skare Ozbolt contends that the president was ‘fairly irritated and angry’ because of the reports on looting and burning of Serb houses in Krajina after Operation Storm. Skare Ozbolt says the law on temporary confiscation of Serb property was passed to prevent further destruction. Why was Cermak angry with the witness?

In an effort to challenge the claim made by former minister of justice Vesna Skare Ozbolt – that after Operation Storm Croatia didn’t obstruct the return of Serb refugees – the prosecution has presented minutes from meetings where President Tudjman spoke about the issue. According to the minutes, the Croatian president stressed that ‘it is out of the question for all of the 150,000 to 200,000 Serbs to return’ and that there should be ‘not even 10 percent’ of them left

In his evidence in the defense of Ante Gotovina, former Croatian foreign minister Miomir Zuzul has argued that Croatia respected the human rights of Serb civilians during and after Operation Storm. Zuzul has offered an original linguistic interpretation of Tudjman’s words that the Serbs "should be provided with a route to leave, while we would pretend to guarantee their civil rights"

In the cross-examination of Miomir Zuzul, testifying as Ante Gotovina’s defense witness, there was another linguistic debate over Tudjman’s sentence that the Serbs’ ‘civil rights should ostensibly be guaranteed’. The prosecution noted that after saying that the president ‘chuckled a little’. The witness argued that he didn’t chuckle at the thought that Serbs should have civil rights, but at the concept of civil rights as it is understood in the West

At the trial for crimes committed during and after Operation Storm, a hearing has been scheduled on the motion filed by Ante Gotovina’s defense to grant immunity to Marin Ivanovic, Gotovina’s team investigator. He has been charged by a Zagreb court with trying to conceal documents sought by the prosecution

On the first day of his evidence at the trial of the Croatian generals for crimes during Operation Storm, former Krajina Serb army commander Mile Mrksic has said he was appointed to that post at the insistence of Slobodan Milosevic, who told him about an agreement with Tudjman and ordered him to stabilize the military and political situation in the RSK and create preconditions for negotiations with Croats

Describing the situation before Operation Storm, Mile Mrksic has claimed that the SVK, under his command at that time, was independent of the Bosnian Serb army and Serbia. Mrksic did admit that Milosevic had ‘overall authority’ over them. According to Mrksic, there was a plan for the evacuation of the people, but it envisaged only a temporary move into the woods, not to BH or Serbia

Former commander of the RSK Army Mile Mrksic claims he was amazed by the accuracy of the Croatian artillery as it targeted military facilities during Operation Storm. The accurate fire was followed by ‘random artillery attacks’ on civilian targets in towns, he says. Mrksic’s ‘misunderstanding’ with Martic has continued to this day

In his cross-examination, Mile Mrksic explained why he believed the Croatian artillery attacks were aimed at civilians and why in his view the civilians didn’t return to their houses as was envisaged in the evacuation plan drafted by the Krajina leadership

On the last day of his testimony, former Serbian Krajina Army commander Mile Mrksic again answered questions by Ante Gotovina’s defense counsel, who challenged the prosecution case that Serbs had been left a corridor to flee to BH and Serbia during Operation Storm; the purpose was to ethnically cleanse Krajina. Misetic quoted ancient Roman sources which state that it is better to leave ‘a golden bridge’ for the enemy to withdraw than to fight

Former military police officer Boris Milas has said it is his impression that about 200 houses were burned down in Krajina after Operation Storm. Milas contends that this could in no way be called ‘widespread’ destruction. Soon after Milas nodded his head when the judge asked him if more than a thousand burned houses listed in a report by Croatian Military Police chief Mate Lausic qualified as ‘widespread’ arson

Gotovina’s defense witness Boris Milas, former chief of the military police CID, was told by the prosecutor that the military police filed just a few criminal reports after Operation Storm for looting and none for the murder and burning of Serb houses. He admitted that it ‘is definitely not an impressive number’, but went on to say that it was impossible to do more than that because there were few reports from the field about the Croatian soldiers committing crimes

At a hearing before the Trial Chamber trying three Croatian generals, Ante Gotovina’s defense argued their motion to suspend the proceedings against Marin Ivanovic, Gotovina’s defense team investigator, before a Croatian court. Ivanovic is suspected of concealing documents from military archives. Representatives of the Croatian judiciary oppose the motion, noting that Ivanovic enjoys no immunity from prosecution before domestic courts. Some of the documents the prosecution has been seeking for years from the Croatian authorities were found in possession of people working for Gotovina’s defense team

Noting the efforts of the Croatian authorities to prosecute war crimes after Operation Storm, Gotovina’s defense called Pero Perkovic, a Croatian soldier indicted for murder in the village of Gosici. According to Perkovic, the investigation was defective and the admissions of guilt were made under duress. As a result, the indictment was dropped and nobody has been convicted for the murder of 16 civilians in the villages of Varivode and Gosici

In his evidence in the defense of Ante Gotovina, former member of the 15th Home Guard Regiment Veselko Bilic admitted he had committed a number of crimes against Serb civilians after Operation Storm, including the murder of an old woman. In Bilic’s words, he did it ‘on his own’; ‘criminals and murderers’ like him should be in the dock instead of ‘the innocent generals’, he added

Describing the situation in Krajina after Operation Storm, Ivan Galovic, public prosecutor from Zadar, said that in the second half of 1995 there was a ‘stampede phenomenon’ there: Croat returnees and common criminals looted the abandoned Serb villages. In his evidence in Gotovina’s defense Galovic said that the Croatian judiciary had tried to fight this with everything it had

In her cross-examination of Zadar public prosecutor Ivan Galovic, the prosecutor tried to prove that the thousand criminal reports filed after Operation Storm in Krajina included a substantial number of criminal reports that had nothing to do with the crimes generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac are charged with

Testifying as Gotovina’s defense witness, former assistant police minister Zdravko Zidovec has denied the prosecution’s allegation that the clear-up operations after Operation Storm actually served to cover up the crimes. The army didn’t take part in the clear-up, he claims

Former US military attaché to Croatia Richard Herrick claims that he was ‘impressed’ by General Ante Gotovina’s military acumen; in his view Operation Storm was aimed at reclaiming the occupied territories and not at expelling the Serb civilians. He admits, though, that he could say nothing about the consequences of the Croatian attack, since he left the office two days before it began

With the evidence of former HV War School commander Mladen Barkovic, the defense of Ante Gotovina is trying to prove that it was difficult to maintain discipline among the units in the liberated territory after Operation Storm, primarily because there was a shortage of well trained non-commissioned officers

Ante Gotovina’s defence witness Stjepan Sterc was shown minutes from the meetings of the Croatian leadership after Operation Storm where Tudjman and other high-ranking officials discuss ways to prevent Serbs from returning to Krajina and to settle Croats in their houses. Sterc said that that the project had never been implemented in practice. According to Sterc, the discussions at those meeting looked like ‘little kids playing war’

British general Timothy Cross has concluded, based on the ‘assumed facts’ provided by General Ante Gotovina’s defense that it was difficult to prevent crimes against Serbs and their property. Cross nevertheless admitted that had he had different ‘assumed facts’ his conclusions would have been different

In his reply to the request of the Trial Chamber hearing the case against the Croatian generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac, Secretary-General of the Council of the EU Javier Solana has stated that eight of the eleven reports drafted by the European observers and sought by the defense have already been delivered to the defense. There is no reliable evidence that the three remaining documents exist, Solana has added

Current Croatian state prosecutor Mladen Bajic is testifying in the defense of Ante Gotovina. During Operation Storm, Bajic was a deputy military prosecutor in Split. He claims that the small number of indictments against Croatian soldiers for crimes against Serbs were not the result of any pressure exerted on the judiciary not to prosecute. In Bajic’s opinion, the real reasons were that the military police lacked experience, the military prosecutor’s office was understaffed and witnesses could not be contacted

In his evidence in General Gotovina’s defense, Croatian state prosecutor Mladen Bajic ‘agreed absolutely’ with the prosecutor when she put it to him that looting was acceptable and allowed in the HV during and after Operation Storm. Bajic also agreed that the crimes against Krajina Serbs were not prosecuted vigorously before 2001

US military expert Anthony Jones has claimed General Ante Gotovina helped calm the situation by constantly issuing orders to prevent crimes and punish the perpetrators. According to the witness, this is manifest from military reports which make no mention of any crimes involving HV personnel after 18 August 1995

US expert on war law Geoffrey Corn drafted a report for Ante Gotovina’s defense, heavily criticizing the findings of prosecution expert Harry Konings that Knin was shelled ‘without any military purpose’. Corn contends his Dutch colleague has misinterpreted law and military doctrine in a number of places in his report

When the prosecution showed him a document in which Ante Gotovina demands that Drvar, Knin, Obrovac, Benkovac and Gracac be shelled, US expert Geoffrey Corn said that it could be interpreted as an order to launch unlawful attacks on civilians; however, ‘a somewhat more convincing’ explanation would be that the general ordered the shelling of military targets in those towns

Ante Gotovina’s defense has called four former members of the Sibenik Brigade to testify. The witnesses maintain that Vladimir Gojanovic was not a member of that unit during Operation Storm. In his evidence for the prosecution last year, Gojanovic claimed that as a HV soldier he had witnessed numerous war crimes perpetrated by his fellow soldiers in August 1995.

Geoffrey Corn, Ante Gotovina's military expert, contends that what Franjo Tudjman said at the Brijuni meeting before Operation Storm was ‘schizophrenic’: on the one hand, Tudjman was trying to figure out how to expel Serb civilians, and on the other, he didn’t want to draw criticism from the international community. According to the prosecution, this was exactly what the Croatian president wanted to do, to bring together those two things by achieving the goals of the joint criminal enterprise without earning the condemnation of the international community

At the very end of the cross-examination of Geoffrey Corn, the prosecution noted that the SVK communications system could have been destroyed in August 1995 by neutralizing targets outside Knin. Ante Gotovina’s defense expert denied this, highlighting the importance of military targets in the town

Former UN special envoy for the former Yugoslavia Yasushi Akashi is testifying as Gotovina's defense witness. He found it hard to recall the events from the time of Operation Storm and did not say unequivocally whether Knin was shelled indiscriminately. He did say that he toured the town after the attack and saw pieces of buildings, broken shop windows and a large number of Serb civilians who sought shelter in the UN base

Former UN special envoy Yasushi Akashi has completed his evidence about the situation in Krajina after Operation Storm. Ante Gotovina’s defense has rested his case. The second accused, Ivan Cermak, will start his defense case next week

In the cross-examination of Croatian historian Josip Jurcevic, the prosecutor tried to impeach the witness by putting to him that the expert report he drafted for General Praljak’s defence is nothing but another element in his lifework, devoted to ‘downplaying the scale of crimes’ committed by Croats. The witness accuses the Croatian authorities of supplying the Tribunal with forged documents in order to convict ‘selected Croats’

The first witness called by Cermak’s defense, Croatian general Franjo Feldi, was cross-examined by Gotovina’s defense counsel, defending the findings from his expert report that after Operation Storm Cermak was under Gotovina’s command, although he had gone to Knin at President Tudjman’s behest

Describing General Ivan Cermak’s role, defense military expert said he exercised ‘less than 20 percent’ of his de jure powers. When the prosecutor showed him some orders the accused general issued to the military police in Knin, the witness replied those were ‘informative orders’ that didn’t have to be carried out

The defense counsel representing the Croatian generals have distanced themselves from the claims made by Pero Kovacevic, Cermak’s expert witness. Kovacevic has said that the accused Croats have had to ‘buy’ documents they need for their defense case ‘on the black market’

Gordan Radin, who served as Tudjman’s chef de cabinet, contends that Tudjman wanted to appoint Ivan Cermak as civilian commander in Knin after Operation Storm. As it was not possible to do so under the law, Cermak was appointed military commander of the Knin Garrison ‘with a civilian task to normalize the situation in the town’

According to witness Borislav Skegro, President Tudjman sent Cermak to Knin as a ‘multidimensional person’, to deal with civilian and not military affairs. The prosecution tried to refute this by contesting Skegro’s credibility, implying that during his term of office in the Croatian government Skegro lied, threatened journalists and opposed co-existence

In his evidence as Ivan Cermak’s defense witness, former Croatian official Zdenko Rincic contends that after Operation Storm the accused general issued ‘requests’ to both civilian and military police. Cermak didn’t have the authority to issue orders, but he did so sometimes, to improve effectiveness, although he knew the orders would not be carried out

Former HV officer Ivica Lukovic claims that after Operation Storm Ivan Cermak had no power over the military and civilian police. The sixth witness to be called by the accused general’s defense further bolstered the defense case noting that, as the commander of the Knin Garrison, Cermak dealt with municipal issues

According to defense witness Karolj Dondo, General Cermak did have in his hands a report about the murder of five elderly Serbs in the village of Grubori in late August 1995. Nevertheless, in front of TV cameras Cermak said that the victims were ‘three Chetniks and two civilians’ killed in the cross-fire. The witness explained that Cermak ‘may have seen’ the report the special police filed about the same incident and may have ‘consequently mixed up the information’

Cermak’s defense witness Karolj Dondo contends that the accused general Ivan Cermak issued orders to the military and civilian police after Operation Storm simply because of the overall confusion in the liberated territory about the chain of command. Cermak himself was not aware that he was not authorized to issue orders

Goran Dodig, psychiatrist from Split, contends that Croatian generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac are not guilty of the crimes during and after Operation Storm. According to Dodig, crimes were committed by psychopaths who make 10 to 15 percent of the population in every society

Petar Pasic, former mayor of Knin, said in his statement to the OTP investigators that the Krajina crimes after the Operation Storm were planned by the Croatian leadership. Later on, in his interviews with Ivan Cermak’s defense, Pasic corrected himself, saying that crimes were just ‘isolated incidents’

Cermak’s defense witness Petar Pasic has made a number of amendments to the statement he gave to the OTP investigators seven years ago. Before he claimed that Ustasha songs were sung in Knin after Operation Storm in the presence of General Ante Gotovina, now he says that patriotic songs, such as the song Jure and Boban, were sung there

Former Knin mayor Petar Pasic claims that the demographic composition of Knin drastically changed after Operation Storm. The number of Serbs dropped from 90 to only five to eight percent. At the same time, the number of Croats rose from eight to 90 percent but Pasic contends that the Croatian authorities were not to blame

In his evidence as General Cermak’s defense witness Ivica Cipci, former chief of the Split-Dalmatia Police Administration, contends that under the Croatian law the accused general was not superior to the civilian police in Krajina after Operation Storm. The presiding judge commented that ‘practice is known to deviate from laws at times’

Noting there was a connection between Ivan Cermak and the civilian police after Operation Storm, the prosecution produced Cermak’s interview with the OTP investigators where he admitted that he had good cooperation with the MUP and Minister Jarnjak. Defense witness Ivica Cipci responded, saying that it actually meant that Cermak had no authority over the police: according to him, cooperation is not the same as having command authority

Former chief of the Zadar-Knin Police Administration Ivan Cetina said that in the first month and a half after Operation Storm civilian police had tried to prevent the looting by Croatian soldiers ‘only if they assessed that there would be no confrontation with the perpetrators’. Cetina claims the police did not investigate the murder of five elderly Serbs in the village of Grubori

Although he was shown several orders Ivan Cermak issued to the police, former chief of the Zadar-Knin Police Administration Ivica Cetina remained adamant that the accused general had no authority over the police after Operation Storm. Cetina did admit that they would look into the reports about crimes received from Cermak, adding that they would inform him about the results of the investigation if Cermak requested them to do that

Mladen Vedris and Nadan Vidosevic, respectively the former and current chairmen of the Croatian Chamber of Commerce, described Ivan Cermak, their former colleague from various business and political entities as ‘a key, exceptional’ person. According to them, Cermak was sent to Knin with the task to normalize civilian life after Operation Storm. Was Stipe Mesic right when he called Tudjman a dictator?

Mladen Markac’s defense tried to prove that the crime wave in Krajina after Operation Storm was an entirely normal consequence of the conflict. Defense expert Christopher Albiston agreed, noting that the situation was similar in Northern Ireland and Kosovo after the conflicts there. The defense counsel then asked the witness to compare the situation in Krajina to the criminals on the rampage in New Orleans after Katrina and in Paris after the street rioting

Ivan Cermak's defense witness has admitted that it is 'disappointing’ that the police did not investigate the crime scenes where Serb civilians had been killed in Krajina, but the fact remains that the Croatian police were afraid that the straggling Serb soldiers might attack them and did not want to stay at crime scenes too long

Defense military expert Jack Deverell has denied that General Ivan Cermak had any command authority over the HV units in Krajina after Operation Storm, saying that Cermak was ‘incredibly unqualified’ for any military role and noting he was ‘flabbergasted’ when he saw a paragraph in the indictment listing the units allegedly under Cermak’s command

In his expert report, British general Jack Deverell says that Ivan Cermak, Knin Garrison commander, didn’t have any authority over the military police in Krajina after Operation Storm. Explaining why he concluded that, he said that Cermak didn’t’ receive reports from the military police as their ‘primary recipient’, but ‘for his information’, ‘as a courtesy’ and was not obliged to do anything about them

Ivan Beneta, brigadier general in the Croatian Army, contends that ‘Croatia had no other way to defend itself’ but to send its troops to BH and prevent the JNA from taking over a swath of Croatian territory up to the Virovitica-Karlovac-Karlobag line

After a month and a half, the defense of the former Knin Garrison commander rested its case. The last witness, military expert Jack Deverell, contends that the accused general was appointed after Operation Storm to a post he ‘didn’t understand’. Consequently, Cermak assumed ‘the responsibility that wasn’t his’, ‘with the best of intentions’. Despite earlier announcements, Mesic, Sarinic and Blazevic were not called to testify

Ivan Beneta, brigadier general in the Croatian Army, contends that ‘Croatia had no other way to defend itself’ but to send its troops to BH and prevent the JNA from taking over a swath of Croatian territory up to the Virovitica-Karlovac-Karlobag line

Former Croatian foreign minister claims that Tudjman’s authorities engaged in various diplomatic efforts to get the rebel Serb leaders from Krajina to the negotiating table and to solve problems peacefully. The Serb leadership kept refusing the initiatives and at the same time indoctrinated their compatriots, telling them not to accept the Croatian state. According to the witness, this culminated in Operation Storm and ‘the departure of those people’

While Granic didn’t deny that there were isolated crimes against Serbs and their property during and after Operation Storm, he claimed that the Croatian authorities wanted to defeat the enemy and to have the civilians remain in their homes. Why was a minority of Serbs allowed to return immediately while most of them had to wait two and a half years to come back

Former Croatian foreign minister Mate Granic explained how in 1995 he dealt with ‘false’, ‘exaggerated’ or ‘even tendentious’ international complaints about the situation in Krajina during and after Operation Storm

Croatian president Franjo Tudjman said it was impossible for the Serbs to return to Krajina after Operation Storm. Mate Granic, who served as Croatian foreign minister at the time, explained that one should distinguish Tudjman as a historian from Tudjman as a politician. The former, Granic explained, often made historical assessments of whether it was possible for the refugees to return home after the war. The latter was a pragmatist who always complied with the recommendations of the international community, said Granic

Former chief of the Croatian Office for Refugees and Displaced Persons Lovre Pejkovic contends that the requirements for a mass return of the Serbs to Krajina were not met until 1998. Before that, Pejkovic explained, permissions were granted on a case-to-case basis and for ‘go and see’ visits

Former chief of the Croatian Office for Refugees and Displaced Persons Lovre Pejkovic claims that 120,000 Serbs left Krajina during and after Operation Storm. The prosecution brought up a UN report stating that almost 200,000 Serbs fled the region. According to the data of the Office for Refugees and Displaced Persons, the witness said, approximately 40,000 Serbs returned to Croatia by 2000

Davor Pavlovic, Mladen Markac’s assistant for communications, described the movements of the Croatian special police during Operation Storm. Pavlovic contends that the special police didn’t take part in crimes; it was not their task to investigate crimes, he added. The Croatian special police ‘fixed’ broken-down civilian vehicles, he said, in order to drive them away

The prosecution has been trying to prove that photos taken in Gracac immediately after Operation Storm clearly show the Croatian special police stealing cars belonging to the Serbs who had fled the region. Davorin Pavlovic, Markac’s defense witness, denied this, saying that the special police only ‘removed’ the broken-down cars from roads and checked them for booby-traps. General Markac was known to ‘shed a tear’, Pavlovic says

The indictment alleges that five elderly Serbs were killed in the village of Grubori on 25 August 1995; in an effort to contest the allegation, Markac’s defense today showed a report drafted by the accused himself. In his report, Markac says that the Croatian special police clashed with the remaining Serb soldiers in the village. One armed Serb and four elderly people were killed in the clash. Former special police commander from Zagreb Zoran Cvrk didn’t want to comment on the document. According to Cvrk, he didn’t know the details about the events in Grubori

Testifying in the defense of police general Mladen Markac, former commander of the Zagreb-based special police unit Zoran Cvrk claims that the buildings in Donji Lapac were set on fire when an HV unit entered the town - the unit was not under Gotovina’s command. Former deputy interior minister Josko Moric was called as Markac’s next witness

According to Marko Miljanic, the village of Skabrnja in the Zadar hinterland was razed to the ground in November 1991 in a ‘strategic operation’ of the JNA, Martic’s militia and unidentified ‘special units’. The goal of the operation was to make an ‘example’ of it for other Croatian villages in Krajina, to intimidate their inhabitants and make them leave their homes

Drazen Vitez, former assistant commander of the Varazdin special police, contends that his men followed General Mladen Markac’s instructions to respect the international law of war during Operation Storm and did not commit any crimes. The witness described the accused as a ‘determined, responsible and highly respected police officer’

The accused generals are protesting against the latest action by the Croatian authorities to locate the documents sought by the prosecution. The defense teams asked the Trial Chamber to order the Croatian authorities to immediately cease all such current and future activities. Reminding the defense that an order of this kind can be issued ‘in exceptional circumstances’, the judges postponed their decision until tomorrow, when the prosecution and the Republic of Croatia are to explain their actions in the search for the documents

After a four-hour hearing attended by the representatives of the Croatian government, the Trial Chamber with Judge Orie presiding issued an urgent order to the Croatian authorities to cease further inspection of documents and items confiscated from current or former members of Ante Gotovina’s defense team. The documents and items were confiscated in an action that targeted persons suspected of hiding and/or destroying documents stolen from the state archives

At the hearing about the missing HV artillery documents, the OTP noted it was now seeking 63 documents. The Croatian delegation argued that a significant part of the artillery reports from Operation Storm never actually existed

Granting the request of Ante Gotovina’s defense, the Trial Chamber today asked the European Union to ‘focus and intensify’ its efforts to find a compendium of logbooks produced by the EC Monitoring Mission in Knin. The diaries contain reports drafted during and after Operation Storm

In his evidence as General Markac’s defense witness, former member of the Croatian Special Police medical corps Ivan Herman contends that the situation in Donji Lapac in August 1995 was ‘satisfactory’ for as long as the special police stayed there. Houses and haystacks had been set on fire by the Serbian troops as they retreated; when the Croatian Army entered the town, the burning started again, Herman said

The Trial Chamber confirmed and provided the reasoning for its last week’s decision ordering Croatia to suspend its inspection of the documents and computers seized from Gotovina’s defense team members. The Trial Chamber dismissed the defense’s motion to prohibit any further searches undertaken that might be conducted in order to find the missing artillery documents

Snjezana Bagic, one of the authors of the law on temporary takeover of property abandoned during and after Operation Storm, is testifying as Mladen Markac’s defense witness. Bagic contends that the goal of that law was not to prevent Serbs from coming back. On the contrary the law was aimed at protecting abandoned Serb houses by letting them temporarily to Croatian returnees and refugees

Markac’s defense witness contends that legislation was passed after Operation Storm to speed up the Serbs’ return to Krajina, but in some cases, the laws were not efficient enough. People had to wait for a long time for their houses to be restored to them – in some cases as long as six years

In his evidence as a defense witness of the Croatian special police commander Mladen Markac, General Dragutin Repinc claims that the police task in Operation Storm was to push back the enemy from the territory between Mount Velebit and the BH border. According to Repinc, the police was not there to control the liberated territory. The prosecution alleges that a number of incidents involving arson and looting of abandoned Serb property occurred there

Defense military expert Dragutin Repinc contends that the special police under General Markac’s command searched more than 5,000 square kilometers of territory in the two months after Operation Storm: only two incidents were reported in that period. According to Repinc, this is proof of the high level of discipline in the Croatian special police

Defense military expert Dragutin Repinc says he noticed a ‘major discrepancy’ between two reports Markac filed about the murder of five elderly Serbs in the village of Grubori. However, because of ‘the sensitivity of the incident’, the witness was not able to personally conduct an investigation and see why the first document doesn’t speak about the incident at all. The second report claims that the civilians were killed in the cross-fire when the Croatian special police clashed with the Serb fighters. Repinc couldn’t rule out the possibility that the report was changed based on ‘fabricated’ and not ‘new’ facts

Tomislav Penic, the last witness of Markac’s defense, said that the Republic of Croatia showed its good will when it passed the amnesty law. The Serbs’ participation in the armed rebellion, their ‘fanaticism, shouting at roadblocks, concealing rifles’ were forgiven and forgotten. Franjo Tudjman brought up his days in prison in the debate about the amnesty law

At the administrative hearing in the trial of generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac, the judges indicated they would call additional witnesses. The names of witnesses were not disclosed today

Not satisfied with the last EU report on the steps taken to locate the EC monitors’ logbooks from Knin, the Trial Chamber issued an ‘urgent’ invitation to the Secretary-General of the EU Council to provide a more detailed report about the search of the European archives within 14 days. Gotovina’s defense has sought the logbooks of the European monitors from Knin for some time

Following the Trial Chamber’s request for a ‘more detailed’ report on the steps taken to locate the EC Knin monitors’ logbook drafted during Operation Storm, Secretary-General of the EU Council Pierre de Boissieu says that more than 200,000 documents were searched, but the Knin logbook sought by Gotovina’s defense has not been located. De Boissieu has advised the Trial Chamber to address the EU Monitoring Mission member states in the effort to locate the missing document

Jure Radic, former Croatian minister for development and reconstruction, proposed to President Tudjman to limit the percentage of Serbs in a part of Croatia after Operation Storm to ‘no more than 10 percent’. Asked to clarify his proposal, Radic said that by Serbs he meant only those who attacked Croatia with guns, whereas, Croats for him were all loyal citizens regardless of their ethnic background: Serbs, Croats or Bosniaks alike. Radic was called to testify by the Trial Chamber

According to former Croatian minister for development and reconstruction Jure Radic, the graffiti seen on a Knin wall, ‘Cedo, you won’t come back’ in August 1995 didn’t reflect any hostility towards Serbs who had fled during Operation Storm, but the ‘unity of the Croatian people’. He also spoke about Tudjman’s intention to ‘Croatize’ Muslims and bring them closer to the Western civilization

Former Croatian minister Jure Radic contends that the Serbs could not return to their homes after Operation Storm because of security risks, including the landmines. This prompted the judges to ask Radic why Croats enjoyed full freedom of movement in the liberated territory

The second witness of the Trial Chamber was a major in the Croatian military police. Ivan Juric claims that during his visit to the Krajina village of Kistanje immediately after Operation Storm he saw ‘nothing out of the ordinary’. The presiding judge then showed him reports drafted by UN members and the Croatian intelligence service which stated that the village was in flames and filled with the stench of dead bodies. The presiding judge asked the witness to help the Trial Chamber to solve ‘this mystery’

The defense of Ante Gotovina argued that in August 1995 HV general Ivan Juric didn’t speak English. Therefore, when Juric met Canadian observers in the village of Kistanje he could not tell what the aim of the ‘clean-up action’ had been. In his evidence for the prosecution the Canadian intelligence officer claimed that Juric told them that the aim was that ‘Chetniks never again return to Krajina’

The Trial Chamber dismissed the defense motion to order the Republic of Croatia to ‘permanently discontinue’ its inspection of computers and documents confiscated last year from members of Gotovina’s defense team in the search for the missing artillery logs. Croatian authorities must not inspect any documents protected by the lawyer-client privilege and materials the defense has prepared for the trial

The defense of Ante Gotovina, unhappy with the Trial Chamber’s decision giving ‘free rein’ to the Croatian authorities to continue investigating defense team members suspected of hiding and/or destroying documents from state archives, today sought leave to appeal. Markac’s former deputy Zeljko Sacic started his evidence in closed session

Zeljko Sacic, former chief of the Croatian Special Police Staff and deputy of the accused Mladen Markac today gave evidence in open session for a short time. Sacic described the role and the wartime activities of the special police in Operation Storm. It appears that Sacic’s examination in closed session was much more interesting

At first, Zeljko Sacic contended that he hadn’t received any reports on the arson cases in Gracac and Lapac. The former deputy commander of the special police then thanked the prosecutor when she reminded him that he was the recipient of various reports about the cases where abandoned houses were burned down. Sacic admitted that he didn’t launch any investigations and suggested to the prosecutor to ask Markac if he did it. The accused Markac commanded the Croatian special police at the time

In the final part of his evidence, Zeljko Sacic heaped praise on his former superior, General Mladen Markac, noting that Markac’s humanity had always impressed him. The trial continues in mid-April with the evidence of the next Trial Chamber’s witness

In an effort to unravel the controversy surrounding the police reports on the incident in which elderly Serbs were killed in the village of Grubori in Krajina in late August 1995, the judges in the Operation Storm case called Stjepan Zinic to testify in The Hague. Zinic commanded one of the Croatian special units that took part in the ‘mop-up operation’ in the Plavno Valley

In his cross-examination at the trial of Croatian generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac, the Croatian special police member Stjepan Zinic tried to explain the discrepancies in his various statements about the murder of elderly Serbs and burning down of houses in the village of Grubori

A member of the Croatian special police who took part in an action when five elderly Serbs were killed in August 1995 was called by the Trial Chamber to give evidence about the incident. The witness recounted what he knew about the incident and identified possible perpetrators of the crime in the village of Grubori, which is listed in the indictment against generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac

The witness of the Trial Chamber Branko Balunovic explained why he had drafted his report on the murder of elderly Serbs in the village of Grubori in late August 1995 the way he did. In his report Balunovic wrote that there was a clash with remnant Serb soldiers despite the fact that he hadn’t seen it. Balunovic clarified that members of the special police simply ‘weren’t accustomed to drafting reports’. The witness admitted that this thus created ‘distorted image of actual events’

Former member of the special police Bozo Krajina exercised his right not to answer any questions about the murder of elderly Serbs in the village of Grubori. Krajina contends that truthful answers might compromise his position in a Croatian court, where Krajina is charged with covering up that crime. The Trial Chamber has now called all its witnesses but the trial of generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac is not over yet. The prosecution was granted request to reopen its case

As the hearing today drew to a close, presiding judge Orie disclosed the identity of the three additional prosecution witnesses who had testified in closed sessions. The evidence of Jozo Bilobrk, Antonio Gerovac and Zeljko Mikulic, will soon be made public

Additional witnesses called by Ivan Cermak’s defense described what happened during the mop-up operation in the Krajina villages of Strmica and Grubori on 27 August 1995, in response to the testimony of additional witnesses called last week by the prosecution. It is difficult to gauge the impact because the transcripts of the prosecution witnesses’ testimony has yet to be made public, despite the decision of the Trial Chamber of 7 June rescinding ‘temporary protective measures’

Last week’s evidence of three Croatian police officers was unsealed today. The prosecution used their evidence to prove that General Ivan Cermak ordered or proposed on 27 August 1995 that rifles be left or placed near the dead civilians in the village of Grubori to make it look as if they had been killed in armed conflict. Two witnesses who testified yesterday for Cermak’s defense claimed that they didn’t hear of such an order or proposition. They too participated in cleaning up the terrain n Grubori

The prosecution rested its case at the trial of Croatian generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac after more than two and half years and 145 witnesses. The evidentiary stage is now finished, with a small caveat that either party may seek leave to call ‘additional’ evidence. If there are no such motions, the prosecution and the defense will deliver their closing arguments in the second half of August or in early September 2010

The defense’s appeal against the Trial Chamber’s decision to reopen the prosecution’s case was dismissed. The evidence of additional witnesses called by the prosecution on Cermak’s role in the effort to cover-up the murder of five elderly Serbs in the Krajina village of Grubori remains in evidence

In its latest letter, the EU Council has stated that Gotovina’s defense has been given more than 10 reports produced in August 1995 by the European monitoring mission’s Knin Regional Center, but there are no clear indications that the Knin observers did actually put together a logbook at all

In the closing argument at the trial of generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac, the prosecution insisted that it never claimed that the Republic of Croatia had a plan or a policy to expel the Serbs from Krajina. It was done by Croatian officials involved in the joint criminal enterprise, headed by President Tudjman, in which the three accused played a part

Noting that the prosecution in the case of the Croatian generals acted as a ‘devil’s advocate’ alleging that there was ‘invisible ethnic cleansing’, Ante Gotovina’s defense lawyers called for his acquittal. As Gotovina’s defense noted, Gotovina was a ‘brave and honest soldier to whom the world owes a debt of gratitude because he put his life in danger to vanquish those who had ethnically cleansed the territory of ex-Yugoslavia’. The defense teams of Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac also called for their clients’ acquittal

The trial of three Croatian generals for crimes during and after Operation Storm ended today after three days of closing arguments. The prosecution asked for 27 years in prison for Ante Gotovina, 17 years for Ivan Cermak and 23 for Mladen Markac. The defense teams called for their clients’ acquittal. The judgment is to be delivered ‘in the foreseeable future’, most probably by the end of the year

Judge Orie’s Trial Chamber has scheduled the date for the delivery of the judgment to generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac, who were tried for crimes against Krajina Serbs during and after Operation Storm, in the summer of 1995

Following a request of the European Union, the prosecution has asked that some of the documents produced by the European monitors in Krajina during and after Operation Storm be placed under seal, although it is not opposed to the contents being discussed publicly

General Gotovina’s defense opposes the prosecution motion supporting the request of the European Union to place under seal some of the documents produced by the EC monitors during Operation Storm. Gotovina’s defense contends it will jeopardize the rights of EU citizens, including Ante Gotovina, who is a French national

Croatian generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac were today convicted as participants of the joint criminal enterprise headed by former president Franjo Tudjman. The judges found that Ivan Cermak didn’t contribute to the crimes against Serbs in Krajina during and after Operation Storm

What are the facts on which the Judge Orie and his Trial Chamber based their legal finding about the existence of a joint criminal enterprise to permanently eliminate Serbs from Krajina, headed by Croatian president Tudjman in the summer of 1995? Convicted generals Gotovina and Markac contributed significantly to the joint criminal enterprise, the judges found, unlike General Cermak who was acquitted

In its judgment in the case of generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac, the Trial Chamber decided there existed a joint criminal enterprise not only on the basis of their analysis of the Brioni meeting transcripts. The judges took into account several other indicators, such as the attitude displayed by President Tudjman and the Croatian state leadership towards the Serb minority and the question of their return after Operation Storm

In the judgment for Gotovina, Markac and Cermak, the judges concluded that the aim of the legal measures introduced by the Croatian authorities after Operation Storm was to ‘allocate the abandoned Serb property […] to Croats and thereby deprive the real owners of their housing and property’; this also led the Trial Chamber to find that the joint criminal enterprise did exist in this case

The judgment of generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac highlights the omissions in the investigations of crimes after Operation Storm as another indicator of the existence of a joint criminal enterprise whose goal was to expel Serbs from Krajina. The emphasis was placed on the crime in the village of Grubori. The Croatian special police murdered a number of civilians in the village; their commanders then invented a story about a clash with ‘terrorists’

The Trial Chamber found that the artillery attacks on the Krajina towns in Operation Storm were carried out in order to force the Serb civilians to flee, just as the prosecution claimed. The judges did not give any credence to the defense case, which was that the towns were shelled in order to achieve a military victory

Despite the fact that Milan Martic's government issued an order for the civilians to evacuate on 4 August 1995, the Trial Chamber concluded that the Croatian Army and special police were primarily responsible for the exodus of the Krajina Serbs during and after Operation Storm

Previously, SENSE has analyzed in detail the conclusions of the Trial Chamber in respect of the basic elements of the joint criminal enterprise aimed at expelling Serbs from Krajina, indiscriminate shelling of towns and deportation of civilians. The next three articles will deal with the judges’ findings about the individual criminal responsibility of the three accused

The judges sentenced General Mladen Markac to 18 years in prison, noting that Markac’s contribution to the joint criminal enterprise could be inferred from his participation at the Brioni meeting, where the plans were made to expel Serbs from Krajina. Markac also contributed to the joint criminal enterprise when he ordered the indiscriminate artillery attacks on Gracac and failed to punish the special police who committed crimes in Gracac, Donji Lapac, Grubori and other places in Krajina where civilians were killed and their property destroyed

Judge Orie’s Trial Chamber found there was not enough evidence to show that General Cermak’s activities after Operation Storm were directed at implementing the objective of the joint criminal enterprise. The Trial Chamber concluded that Cermak did not have significant power over the army and the police in Knin, which was his area of responsibility

The defense teams seek to quash the finding that there was a joint criminal enterprise aimed at expelling Serbs from Krajina and call for the acquittal of generals Gotovina and Markac. Having reviewed the judgment, the prosecution has decided not to appeal. This means that Ivan Cermak is now a free man, as there is no appeal pending against his acquittal

ICTY president Patrick Robinson has appointed five judges who will rule on the appeals filed by the defense teams of Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac. The Croatian generals have appealed their conviction for the joint criminal enterprise and their sentences, 24 years for Gotovina and 18 years in prison for Markac

The defense of convicted Croatian general Ante Gotovina has been prompted by Slobodan Milosevic’s words at a Supreme Defense Council meeting to consider that there are documents that ‘probably may be of use’ in their effort to overturn the Trial Chamber’s judgment on appeal. Gotovina’s defense has asked the Appeals Chamber to compel Serbia to deliver the documents by 15 July 2011

The defense of the Croatian general once again asks the Appeals Chamber to issue a subpoena to the Republic of Serbia compelling it to deliver documents that could purportedly help Ante Gotovina to overturn the Trial Chamber’s judgment on appeal

Gotovina’s defense want the Appeals Chamber to issue an order to the Republic of Croatia to terminate criminal proceedings against Marin Ivanovic, a member of Gotovina’s defense team, and to explain why this hasn’t already been done, in light of the Trial Chamber’s order to that effect issued seven months ago

In its response to the appellate briefs filed by the two Croatian generals, the prosecution states that the Appeals Chamber should reject all grounds of appeal denying the existence of the joint criminal enterprise aimed at expelling Serbs from Krajina and the participation of the two accused in it

The defense claims that in its response to Gotovina’s appellate brief the prosecution didn’t offer any arguments that might convince the Appeals chamber not to invalidate the judgment sentencing the Croatian general to 24 years in prison

The defense has asked the Appeals Chamber to issue an order to the United Nations to disclose the HV ‘artillery logs’ from Operation Storm. The logs purportedly contain information important for the defense’s challenge of the Trial Chamber’s judgment, sentencing Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac to 24 and 18 years respectively, for crimes against Serb civilians

Twelve military experts, including an expert of General Ante Gotovina’s defense, have urged the Tribunal’s Appeals Chamber to reject the findings in the Trial Chamber’s judgment of the unlawful artillery attacks on civilians in the Krajina towns during Operation Storm. The experts have recalled the significance of the appellate judgment for the development of international humanitarian law

The prosecution has responded to the brief filed by twelve military experts who urged the Appeals Chamber as amici curiae to reject the Trial Chamber’s findings in the case of Croatian generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac. ‘The prosecution contends that the brief “couldn’t assist Appeals Chamber’ as its contents are ‘irrelevant’ and its authors ‘are neither objective nor impartial’

Croatian general Ante Gotovina’s defense argues the motion filed by 12 American military experts about the lawfulness of the artillery attack on the Krajina towns tallies with what the defense has stated in its appellate brief. Gotovina’s defense wants the Appeals Chamber, with US judge Theodor Meron presiding, to take the motion into consideration

The judges are ‘not convinced’ that the brief filed by 12 experts, most of whom are from the US, would assist them in dealing with the issues on appeal. The applicants want the Appeals Chamber to reverse the part of Ante Gotovina’s and Mladen Markac’s judgment about unlawful artillery attack on Serb civilians. The brief was denied mainly because of the concerns about the applicants’ objectivity and because it revisits the issues already dealt with by the Trial Chamber and in the appeal briefs filed by the parties

The Trial Chamber with Judge Theodor Meron presiding has scheduled an appellate hearing for 14 May 2012. The defense of the two convicted generals will present their arguments against the Trial Chamber’s judgment, sentencing Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac to 24 and 18 years in prison respectively. The prosecution will then respond to the arguments. The two generals may address the court if they wish

Gotovina and Markac will first be in court for the appellate hearing following their appeals against their sentences of 24 and 18 years in prison respectively. Nine days later, there will be a status conference to allow the accused to raise any issues related to the conditions of their detention and their health

The Appeals Chamber presented to the parties four key issues they should deal with at the appellate hearing scheduled for 14 May 2012. The issues refer to the Trial Chamber’s finding that the artillery attack launched by the Croatian Army on Krajina towns was unlawful and that, as such, it constituted an element of the joint criminal enterprise aimed at expelling Serbs from Krajina

In the first part of the appellate hearing in the Operation Storm case, General Ante Gotovina’s defense exchanged arguments with the prosecution. The defense challenged the Trial Chamber’s finding about the existence of a joint criminal enterprise aimed at permanently eliminating Serb civilians from Krajina. The Trial Chamber found that the aim was implemented through an unlawful attack on civilians in Knin and other towns in Krajina in August 1995

The defense of the former Croatian special police commander contends that the Trial Chamber’s judgment will fall down like a ‘house of cards’ and the accused will be acquitted. The prosecution highlighted Markac’s role in the planning of the expulsion of Serbs from Krajina, the unlawful shelling of Gracac, the murder of civilians and destruction of their property. The two accused addressed the Appeals Chamber in different languages to convey similar messages

If Gotovina and Markac end up being acquitted of the artillery attack on Krajina towns or involvement in the joint criminal enterprise on appeal, should they be found guilty of command responsibility or aiding and abetting the crimes? The prosecution has to file its answers to those hypothetical questions asked by the Appeals Chamber before 10 August 2012 to assist the judges to achieve ‘a just resolution’ the appellate proceedings

The defense teams explain why in their view the Croatian generals shouldn’t be convicted of aiding and abetting crimes if the Appeals Chamber finds they are not guilty of unlawful artillery attacks on Knin and their part in the joint criminal enterprise aimed at expelling Krajina Serbs during and after Operation Storm

Ratko Mladic’s trial continued in closed session for the second day. The only hearing open to the public was a seven-minute status conference in Gotovina’s and Markac’s appellate proceedings; the two Croatian generals were convicted by the Trial Chamber of crimes against Serb civilians during and after Operation Storm. Markac is ‘OK’ after a difficult surgery and Gotovina has no health problems

On Friday, 16 November 2012 the Appeals Chamber will render its judgment to Croatian generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac. The Trial Chamber sentenced Gotovina to 24 years and Markac to 18 years in prison for crimes in Operation Storm

The five judges in the Appeals Chamber rendered the final judgment today in the Gotovina and Markac case, voting three to two to quash the Trial Chamber’s verdict on unlawful artillery attacks on the Krajina towns as the main cause of the deportation of the Serb civilians during and after Operation Storm, concluding that the joint criminal enterprise to permanently remove Serbs from Krajina did not exist

In their dissenting opinions, judges Agius and Pocar dissected the approach and findings of the majority in the Appeals Chamber. In its judgment rendered last week, the Appeals Chamber acquitted Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac on all counts in the indictment. Gotovina and Markac were charged with taking part in the joint criminal enterprise in which crimes were committed against Serb civilians in Krajina during and after Operation Storm in the summer of 1995

Former President of the Tribunal Fausto Pocar stated that the reasoning of the majority in the appellate judgment that acquitted Gotovina and Markac was ‘wrong, incorrect and misleading’ and even ‘grotesque’. In the conclusion of his dissenting opinion, Judge Pocar raised and left unanswered the issue why the majority - if it wanted to acquit Gotovina and Markac - had to quash the very existence of the joint criminal enterprise rather than concentrating on Gotovina’s and Markac’s contributions to it

Judge Pocar opposed the decision of the majority in the Appeals Chamber not to convict generals Gotovina and Markac on the basis of their command responsibility for failing to prevent and punish crimes of their subordinates arguing that this was yet another indication of the ‘legal confusion’ in the majority’s reasoning. Judge Agius argued that the Trial Chamber’s findings on the responsibility of the accused for crimes were rejected for lack of ‘explicit statements’ although such statements would merely be ‘spelling out the obvious’

Five days after the Appeals Chamber delivered its judgment acquitting Croatian generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac with a three-to-two majority, the Tribunal’s chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz issued a statement

The initiative to calm down the situation, redress the wrongdoings, give equal attention to all war crimes should come from the Croatian side. The Serbian side feels damaged by what they perceive as fundamental injustice - not so much with the acquittal of Gotovina and Markac in itself but more with the implications arising from the judgment. The judgment implies that crimes against Serb victims were insignificant and that farmers left their homes, property and livestock and embarked on living as refugees for years out of spite almost - stressed Zoran Pusic, President of Civic Committee for Human Rights in Croatia