Former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Carla del Ponte, stated on Friday for HTV that she is surprised by the acquittal of Croatian generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markač.
– This morning I received information about the verdict and I was very surprised because Gotovina and Markač were convicted in the first instance. It was a big, big surprise. I intend to read the court ruling to see what went wrong between the first-instance verdict and the appeal – she stated.
The Appeals Chamber of the Hague Tribunal on Friday acquitted generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markač of all responsibility for participating in a joint criminal enterprise and crimes committed during and after Operation Storm, first overturning the first-instance verdict under which they were sentenced to 24 and 18 years in prison, respectively, and then reviewing the evidence again and concluding that the two generals could not be held alternatively responsible as accomplices in the joint criminal enterprise nor for omissions as commanders.
The final ruling of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) established that the two generals were not members of the joint criminal enterprise and were not responsible for unlawful artillery attacks on civilian targets during Operation Storm, which was the basis for their conviction.
