Published in Nacional number 514, 2005-09-19

Autor: Berislav Jelinić

EXCLUSIVE

Blaškić to be retried due to questionable documents from the Police Ministry

The ICTY Prosecution has received an expanded version of the document used in the defense of Tihomir Blaškić from the Police Ministry: this document shows that the key police source for compilation of the document was Blaškić’s attorney Anto Nobilo

Nacional has learned that one of the main reasons why ICTY Chief Prosecutor has requested a retrial for Tihomir Blaškić is the “confirmed unauthenticity of the documents received in the appeal procedure”, and which were used in Blaškić’s defense. This relatively vague legal formulation reveals that the reason behind Del Ponte’s request does not simply lie in possible new witnesses with information on the Ahmići massacre, for which Blaškić was initially sentenced to 45 years in prison.

Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte shocked the Croatian public and Blaškić’s family with her request for a retrial. Globus was the first to release this information on 26 August 2005, claiming that Del Ponte was in possession of new information on Blaškić’s guilt based on the claims by a new prosecution witness. Globus made the assumption that this new secret witness could either be Pasko Ljubičić or Miroslav Bralo Čičko.

Nacional has learned from sources close to the prosecution that Carla Del Ponte has more, allegedly 4 new witnesses, whose statements contradict the claims made in Blaškić’s defense by which Blaškić issued defense commands in a legitimate military operation. Two of the four new witnesses have been granted protected witness status. It is possible that one of these new witnesses is a person who was employed with the police after 2000 or is still employed.

During 2004, Carla Del Ponte’s investigators received a document which lead them to suspect that the Trial Chamber which one year ago had reduced Blaškić’s sentence from 45 to 9 years based that ruling on the belief that there existed a double line of command responsibility over the Croatian troops in BiH under Blaškić’s command, which was in part based on an incorrectly interpreted police document.

This is a 20 page document entitled “Knowledge of the Croatian Police Ministry (MUP) on events related to the crimes in Ahmići”. This document describes the causes of the Croatian-Muslim conflict in BiH and the Lašva Valley, the structure of the military and civil rule in Central Bosnia and the distribution of military formations at the time of the Ahmići massacre, the actions of the HVO command structures and SIS and certain Croatian agencies following the crimes, the involvement of the Croatian intelligence system and state-political organs in the investigation surrounding the crimes at Ahmići and manipulations with HVO documents.

Among other things, this police document refers to the existence of a double line of command responsibility in the area commanded by Tihomir Blaškić. A good part of this arose as a reconstruction of that which Toni Nobilo had stated regarding the war events in that part of BiH. The Croatian police began to investigate this case after Ante Slišković and Tomislav Vlajić had been found in the Zadar area after many years of peaceful hiding under phony names. An investigation was launched against them, and one of the persons who cooperated with police on the events in question was Anto Nobilo, Tihomir Blaškić’s attorney. The MUP document in question arose partially based on Nobilo’s statements, primarily to be used as a basis for the criminal prosecution of Slišković and Vlajić. To date, the case has not had its judicial epilogue, allegedly due to a lack of evidence. Then MUP forwarded this document to the Hague and passed it on to Nobilo, who also later added it to the Blaškić file. However, both sides likely intentionally made this manipulation, which could result in Blaškić having to again go through an uncertain trial.

Neither MUP nor Nobilo informed the Hague Tribunal that this was a document which arose based on Nobilo’s findings. However, this was learned by the Hague Prosecutor in 2004, when they came into possession of an expanded version of the MUP document. It is not known who sent this document to The Hague, and why, however, this version of the document clearly shows that one of the sources of the findings within, if not the only source, was none other than Anto Nobilo. This was not visible in the first version of the document, for it was sent incomplete, only with the statement that MUP had come to these findings, without mentioning how.

Seeing later what had happened, the Hague prosecution concluded that this document was used to manipulate the Trial Chamber which ruled on Blaškić’s fate. In other words, the Trial Chamber accepted the MUP document as something that is accepted as an institutional position, not knowing that the document had come to be in part as the reconstruction of findings of interested parties in the case.

After Blaškić’s defense team appealed the first instance ruling of 45 years in prison, his attorney Anto Nobilo sent numerous documents to The Hague which supported his thesis that Blaškić did not have control over all that was happening in his zone of command responsibility. In the end, this reduced Blaškić’s sentence to 9 years.

Though there are numerous documents which support the thesis that Blaškić is not responsible for all that he was accused of, there are not many documents which directly and in writing corroborate the thesis on the existence of a double line of command in Central Bosnia. Therefore, the prosecution believes that a retrial could question the authenticity of several other documents which Nobilo used in defending Blaškić.

The circumstances which lead to the prosecution’s request for a retrial are particularly uncomfortable for his attorney Nobilo, as the prosecution could again accuse him of belittling the Court and contempt.

On 11 December 1998, Nobilo was accused for contempt of the Court and fined 4545 euro in the Blaškić case. He was fined as during the Blaškić trial, he revealed the identity and profession of a protected witness who had testified for the Prosecution in the Aleksovski case. Ten days after being fined, he was allowed to lodge an appeal against that decision, which he did, claiming that among other things, he did not have enough money to pay the fine. The official ICTY webpage does not contain information as to whether or not Nobilo’s appeal was accepted.

The Hague Prosecution suspects Nobilo of informing the public of Carla Del Ponte’s request for a retrial for Blaškić. The Prosecution formed this request at the end of July (allegedly on 27 July) and Nobilo received part of that request by fax on 2 August. Allegedly, his fax machine ran out of paper and so he failed to receive the last few pages of the fax, and therefore did not know what it was about. Therefore, he informed Blaškić of the request in mid-August, and on the same day that Globus published the intentions of the Prosecution, Nobilo and Blaškić requested that the state pay for the defense.

In the meantime, Blaškić’s attorney gave a statement for Nova TV on the intentions of the Hague prosecution, which was reason for the Prosecution to request a copy of the tape of his statement for television, as this is a confidential case which was not to be publicly released. No one other than Nobilo was aware of the intentions of the Prosecution, and that which the Prosecution possesses in the case. In his request that the government continue to pay for Blaškić’s defense, Nobilo did not speak about the details of the letter he received from the Hague, claiming only that this was a confidential document. However, sources close to other people indicted for Ahmići claim that they also have the request for a retrial for Blaškić, which was received by Nobilo. If that is the case, then only Nobilo could have given them this confidential letter, which he was not permitted to do. However, this all suggests that Nobilo began to collect information from the defense attorneys as to what Ljubičić or Bralo intended to state in their defense, which documents they possessed and whether or not they would point the finger at Blaškić.

Nacional requested Nobilo’s comment on the case, but he was unavailable for comment. However, all this does not mean that a retrial against Blaškić would be uncertain or that his position in a new trial would be any worse. Among other things, Blaškić could also be benefited by the fact that he has already been convicted and that the Court is very behind in its work and they want to conclude the ongoing cases as soon as possible. Such a development of events and the possibility of document manipulation open the possibility for someone to ask again whether other rulings have also been made on the basis of incorrectly interpreted documents.

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