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


The prosecution intends to call 134 witnesses to prove the responsibility of Ante Gotovina, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac for the crimes against Serbian civilians in the course of the Operation Storm and in its aftermath in the summer of 1995. It has been allotted exactly 209 hours and 30 minutes for their examination-in chief. It is expected that the defense teams of the three accused will be given at least the same amount of time for the cross-examination, but the Trial Chamber didn’t discuss this issue at the pre-trial conference today. The prosecution case is likely to last about seven months.

The trial in the Operation Storm case will start tomorrow with the opening statement of the prosecutor Alan Tieger. Only Gotovina’s defense chose to deliver its opening statement at the beginning of the trial. The defense teams of Cermak and Markac will deliver their opening statement at the beginning of the defense case, unless the Trial Chamber decides that there is no case to answer.

At the pre-trial conference today, all the parties in the forthcoming trial met in the courtroom for the first time. The Trial Chamber was in its full strength, with presiding judge Alphons Orie from Holland and judges Uldis Kinis from Latvia and Elizabeth Gwaunza from Zimbabwe. Alen Tieger, Stefan Waespi and Katrina Gustafson represented the prosecution. Luka Misetic and Gregory Kehoe attended as the defense counsel of Ante Gotovina, Steven Kay and Andrew Cayley as representatives of Ivan Cermak and Goran Mikulicic and Tomislav Kuzmanovic as the defense team of Mladen Markac.

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