Croatian General Mladen Markac

On 31 August Croatian General Mladen Markac’s defence has filed its full reply to the ICTY Prosecution’s Brief that Generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac, in case the Appeal Chamber found no case for joint criminal enterprise (JCE) and therefore no case for deportation of Serbs from Croatia associated with Operation Storm (August 1995), should be found guilty of alternate modes of liability, i.e. aiding and abetting joint criminal enterprise on grounds of command responsibility.

General Mladen Markac’s defence says, in its reply to the prosecution’s brief, that he cannot be convicted of alternative modes of liability during the appeal process because the original conviction (April 2011) gives no bases for that.

“That’s the same as claiming that the house will remain whole after you remove all its bearing walls,” Markac’s defence said as it sought from the ICTY to reject the prosecutions claims as unfounded.

Markac’s defence reply starts with an Overview:

“That the Appeals Chamber is even contemplating convicting Markač on alternative bases of liability, at this very late stage of the proceedings and without any prosecution appeal, raises grave jurisdictional1 and due process objections.

Those objections aside, there are insufficient “remaining findings” to support such a conviction in any event.

Accordingly, the Prosecution’s submissions in its Prosecution Supplemental Brief on Alternative Modes of Liability for Mladen Markač should be rejected in their entirety”.

And concludes:

“If Markac is right in his appeal arguments, and he was wrongly convicted on the basis of JCE, then decency demands that he should be acquitted and released as soon as possible. This is especially so given that the Prosecution has not appealed the Chamber’s failure to make findings on superior responsibility and aiding and abetting as an error of law.

To allow Markač to oscillate between hope and despair, with the case against him changing even at the oral hearing, and now even post-hearing, creates intolerable mental and physical anguish.

A convicted person is not a plaything of justice. The Tribunal, which champions human rights and the right to a fair process, should show compassion in these circumstances and bring the appeal to a swift close.”

Markac’s defence Reply demonstrates the full absurdity of the eventuality where Markac could be found guilty along the lines of command responsibility or as aider and abettor of JCE, that is that he could be found guilty of something that is not even a subject to Appeal. They further say that in that case, General Ivan Cermak (acquitted in April 2011 by ICTY in proceedings against Gotovina, Markac and Cermak for JCE etc.) could also be found guilty on basis of command responsibility even though he was found not guilty and was acquitted within same Trial Chamber proceedings.

The Prosecution seeks a metamorphosis of the Appeal process into a morally deficient marketplace where established rules of evidence and justice are lost in the prosecution’s rummage for the desired product (conviction any which way). It’s a marketplace where innocent people plead for justice and are humiliated over and over again. Sad times for humanity, indeed, when prosecutors carve political agendas into the process that must only consider pure evidence and fact. The pure evidence and pure facts show that General Ante Gotovina and General Mladen Markac have no case to answer for any crimes, not even the concocted one of participating in joint criminal enterprise through alleged unlawful shelling during Operation Storm. Yet, they must sit there and endure the prosecution’s crazy antics, crazy notions, crazy hypotheses, crazy everything… I guess it won’t be long now before we see whether the Appeal Chamber is playing with the prosecution team in a most unfair game of political scrabble where, instead of words, convictions are constructed into phrases and garble that have no tested evidence nor due process to sustain them in the real terms of justice for humanity. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)