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ZAGREB, Nov 28 (Hina) - The Croatian Academy of Legal Sciences organised an international conference in Zagreb on Monday on individual criminal liability in the practice of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), on the Academy's 10th anniversary, with eminent US lawyer Steven Becker saying the ICTY's political approach was evident and that the trial verdict against Croatian General Ante Gotovina was groundless.
In a talk on personal criminal responsibility for mass crimes from Nuremberg to the former Yugoslavia, Becker criticised those who thought the Hague-based ICTY should be an accurate creator of historical records.
An expert in international criminal law, Becker said the ICTY could not write history because it did not have a tool for that and could only decide whether someone was guilty or not. He said the introduction of protected witnesses was poor practice, as their statements could not be obtained, yet it was evident that sometimes they lied in their depositions.
There are no grounds for the trial verdict against Gotovina, Becker said, adding that if one looked at the verdict, one would easily establish that it was aimed to show that all parties were guilty and that no one was innocent.
Voicing his doubts about the appeals proceedings, Becker said the ICTY's political approach was evident. We wanted to avoid impunity, yet we created a monster that can't protect those it should protect, he said.
The Croatian Academy of Legal Sciences, Zeljko Horvatic, said the ICTY did not treat the concept of aggression equally and that it totally negated the fact of who started the war in the former Yugoslavia.
He added that the Office of the Prosecutor acted with superiority towards the defence, although everyone should be equal. The Office of the Prosecutor assumes the role of judge but the identification of a party in the proceedings with the tribunal is unheard-of, except in some trials that should be forgotten, Horvatic said.
As for the trial against six Bosnian Croats, he wondered how they could be accused and tried without allowing Croatia and them to defend themselves given the accusations of the accountability of entire structures, he said.
The talk of former ICTY judge Wolfgang Schomburg, who was unable to attend the conference, was handed out in written form. In it, he says the doctrine of a joint criminal enterprise is an entirely unnecessary, and even dangerous, example of defining a form of accountability which is not envisaged in the statutes of contemporary international tribunals, notably the ICTY and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
The papers from the conference will be collected and published.
The Croatian Academy of Legal Sciences was established on 7 November 2001. Initially, it had 52 members, whereas now it has 113 regular members and 34 associates.
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