
ICTY in the Hague is very busy these days with Prosecution responses and requests regarding the Application and Brief by 12 British, Canadian and American legal and military experts as Friends of the court filed on January 12 and subsequent responses by the appellants Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac.
On February 6 The Prosecution has filed a motion to strike the January 23 response by General Mladen Markac defence team.
In its Motion the Prosecution claims that the Markac response:
a) Came too late or past the deadline – i.e. 20 days is too long after the Application and Brief by the 12 British, Canadian and American experts as Friends of the court;
b) If Markac’s January 23 response is to be viewed as his Response to Prosecution Response to the Application and Brief by 12 experts then Markac has no right to file such a response as he is not the applicant in the Application and Brief by the 12 experts.
Last week Markac’s defence team sought rejection of the Prosecution Response/Motion arguing, among other things, that Prosecution’s response was premature, i.e. that the Prosecution should have waited for an invitation from the court to file a motion. Also, Markac’s defence team claimed that the Prosecution was placing overly strict conditions upon Friends of the court applications and that the Prosecution’s interpretations were not in accordance with the court’s practices or rules.
In its latest Motion (above) the Prosecution now claims that Markac’s defence team is “playing” outside the court rules for filing responses.
One cannot avoid the feeling that there’s some significant nervousness coming out of the Prosecution camp at the ICTY.
Gotovina and Markac Appeal defences have invested a great deal of effort in trying to demolish the ICTY’s thesis of joint criminal enterprise that was part of the Trial Chamber’s conviction. In addition to this there came the Brief by the 12 British, Canadian and American legal and military experts. If the latter is accepted by the court then it’s hard to see how, after hearing the evidence from the Brief etc, the Appeal Chamber could confirm the Trial Chamber’s conviction of April 2011. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A.,M.A.Ps.(Syd)








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