Luka Misetic - not only did he successfully remove Miroslav Separovic from the Hague, but his defence concept could confirm the Prosecutor's thesis of a 'associated criminal undertaking'Just 60 days before the Hague trials of three Croatian generals, Ante Gotovina, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac, is slated to begin, Malden Markac's friends and current attorneys are looking, day and night, for a lawyer that would take the place of Miroslav Separovic before the Hague tribunal as the Tribunal decision is, by all appearances, set to exclude him from the process by week’s end. This kind of epilogue to the story of Separovic's conflict of interest will lead to an open conflict in the coming months between the legal teams of the three Croatian generals, and these conflicts, in which the gloves will come off, will not be limited only to the courtroom. The latest developments have provided hints to legal experts as to what the defence strategies of the three generals will look like, and the direction that can be discerned from the legal team of Ante Gotovina could be, at the very least, embarrassing for Croatian policy makers.

And although last week's deliberations at the Hague Tribunal were closed without a decision from the Tribunal to dismiss Miroslav Separovic from the position of Mladen Markac's defence attorney, the Hague's Deliberations Chamber clearly indicated as early as on Tuesday 27 February, that it felt that Separovic was in a conflict of interest. The initial reactions to this position taken by the Tribunal were indications that the other defence attorney Goran Mikulicic, could also exclude himself from the process in solidarity with his colleague, and the news reached the press that Markac himself had decided to lead his own defence in defiance of the decision. However, both indications were shown to be just initial, emotional reactions, followed by more level-headed considerations. And so, say Nacional's sources close to the legal team, given the very high likeliness of a decision to dismiss Separovic, a decision Markac and his defence attorneys expect by the week's end, and given that there is virtually no chance of postponing the start of the trial beyond 7 May, Markac's attorneys have been spending the past few days urgently looking for someone to take Separovic's place. And although up to a few days ago Markac's defence attorneys did not believe this would come about, they began to consider the need to take on a new defence attorney a few months ago, the difficulty being in the specific prerequisites required of a potential candidate: this attorney should be a Croatian national, that is to say a person proficient in the Croatian language, but one that has been educated in law abroad because, besides knowing the Croatian legal system, a good knowledge of Anglo-Saxon law is much more important at the Hague Tribunal. This is why there are currently several lawyers from the USA and Britain on the list of candidates.

Nevertheless, it is quite clear that the decision of the Hague Tribunal will not entirely exclude Separovic from Markac's team: at the trial he will probably take on the role of a "coach on the bench", who will be of significant importance for the defence. Mikulicic's and Separovic's tasks have, namely, even up to now been clearly divided: while the former dealt with process law, the other concerned himself with the facts of the case, i.e. studying the 40,000 pages of documents, interviewing dozens of witnesses and carrying out on-the-ground investigations. Considering that Separovic has been Markac's defence attorney for the past four years, it is hard to expect that a new defence attorney could study the entire material and case in the two months left before the start of the trial.

Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac - Due to Luka Misetic's written submissions, both Croatian generals were almost left without their defense teamsAn additional difficulty, however, will be the antagonism between Miroslav Separovic and Luka Misetic, a problem that became obvious in the middle of last week and that will, by all appearances, last a very long time. The conflict between the two lawyers started in April of last year when Misetic opposed, in written form, the joining of the trials of Gotovina, Cermak and Markac, citing as one of the reasons a conflict of interest between his colleagues Cedo Prodanovic, Jadranka Slokovic and Miroslav Separovic, but they all felt at the time that it was in their interest to carefully keep the tensions in their relations hidden from the public eye. And although Misetic claims that he had no desire in his action to remove his colleagues from the Hague trial room, he had already earned their anger: besides formal procedures that caused them inconvenience, there were signs that some of the members of Gotovina's legal team, such as Marin Ivanovic, were in the field influencing witnesses, persuading them to testify to the detriment of Cermak and Markac. The many months of dissatisfaction were seen for the first time in mid-November when Separovic saw that the Tribunal was taking a serious interest in Misetic's claims of a conflict of interest. Separovic then told the Croatian press that Croatian Government "should consider whether it needs to continue financing lawyers who, instead of refuting the prosecution's claims of an associated criminal undertaking, are playing some other games", and that Misetic has promised him that he would make a written submission to the Tribunal in which he would withdraw his name as an essential witness. Misetic told several Croatian journalists the same in those days, but would later deny the statement.

Marin Ivanovic - though compromised, he has not yet been completely removed from Gotovina's teamIn any event, Misetic had not filed his submission, even by last week's deliberations at the Hague, and the Tribunal's Deliberations Chamber coolly concluded that Separovic was indeed in a conflict of interest. As a result of this, Separovic, upon his return to Zagreb last Thursday again publicly admonished Misetic, marking him as the chief culprit of his very likely dismissal from the Hague Tribunal and, not concealing his anger, said that the behaviour of general Gotovina's defence team towards him had been improper.

Nacional has discovered that Misetic, once he realised that Separovic's public statements in Croatia could hurt him, tried to get into contact with Separovic at the end of last week through several mediators, such as Gotovina's best man Zeljko Dilber, offering to file the submission to withdraw Separovic as an essential witness with the Hague Tribunal within the next 48 hours. And although it was already late for this move by Ante Gotovina's defence team and although the submission could not influence a decision by the Hague Tribunal to dismiss Separovic from the trial, Separovic nevertheless hoped that this document could serve him in the appeal procedure that awaits him, so that he told Misetic, through an intermediary, that he would tone down his public statements if Misetic did in fact send the letter to the Hague. As a guarantee, however, that Misetic would not hoodwink him again, he asked that Misetic send him a draft of the submission over the weekend.

Miroslav Separovic will remain an informal part of Mladen Markac's defence team - he directly accused Luka Misetic for his troublesAccording to Nacional's knowledge, Misetic nevertheless decided not to do so, justifying his decision with the claim that his submission cannot anyway be of any more help to Separovic, because he would be dismissed from the Hague Tribunal following the conclusion of the Deliberations Chamber that Separovic had a "personal interest" in the case, and not because Misetic had cited him as an essential witness. In doing so he again reneged on the agreement and dashed any chance of good relations with the other two defence attorneys. And the personal interest, which the Hague Tribunal's Deliberations Chamber did in fact discuss, but only after Ante Gotovina's defence team began talking about it in April of last year, could hint that Luka Misetic and Gregory Kehoe will lead the defence strategy at the trial of Ante Gotovina in a way that they to a certain extent agrees with the claims of the Hague prosecution of an "associated criminal undertaking".

In his submissions of last year, Misetic explained that Separovic should appear as an essential witness because he served as Justice Minister in 1995, during Operation Storm and should explain who then had competence over the military courts that should have investigated and sanctioned crimes committed during and after Operation Storm. According to the assertions of Misetic, it is precisely Separovic who should, through his testimony, exonerate Ante Gotovina, charged by the prosecution of having neglected to investigate and punish these crimes, because Misetic feels that as Justice Minister, Separovic should explain that the military courts were not at the time under the authority of the Ministry of Defence, of which Gotovina was a part, but rather under the competence of the ministry Separovic was head of.

Separovic has, however, explained several times already that these claims made by Misetic were false dilemmas, because it was the Supreme Court that was superior to the military courts at the time, and not any one of the ministries. As such, he was not the only person that could confirm this, as any one of his deputy ministers from the period could also do. Based on these facts people in legal circles feel that Gotovina's legal team is indicating, through the case of Miroslav Separovic, that it will defend its client by absolving the army of wrongdoing, and that it will pin the blame on the national leadership of the time, especially as pertains to the allegations in the indictment that concern the covering up and lack of sanctioning of the crimes – from Franjo Tudjman to every one of the ministers of the time, which includes then Justice Minister Miroslav Separovic. With claims like that Misetic and Kehoe, who have for months been stating that "their only and exclusive goal is to defend their client", could cause problems for all those people that the Hague Tribunal's prosecution has directly or indirectly included in the "associated criminal undertaking", these being all those involved in the state apparatus in 1995, some of which currently make up the national leadership, i.e. the Government that, which is most bizarre, pays Misetic the not insignificant fee of US$30,000 per month from the state budget for the favour.