The Trial Chamber erred in fact and law when it concluded that Croatian forces unlawfully attacked Serb civilians and civilian objects during Operation Storm in the summer of 1995, the accused Croatian Army general Ante Gotovina said in his appeal against the Trial Chamber's ruling, calling for a reversal of his conviction on all counts.
Gotovina's defence team on Monday filed an appeal against the Trial Chamber ruling of April 15 that sentenced the Croatian Army general to 24 years in prison for war crimes against Serb civilians committed during and after Operation Storm, the Croatian military and police offensive that crushed a Serb insurgency in central and southern Croatia in August 1995.
"General Gotovina requests the Appeals Chamber intervene and reverse his conviction on all counts. The Trial Chamber's findings are so gravely unreasonable that the Judgement must be overturned and his conviction for JCE (joint criminal enterprise) liability set aside," the defence said in a 143-page brief.
General Gotovina issued orders and took actions as part of Operation Storm to recover occupied Croatian territory and in the context of Operation Storm he ordered the use of artillery against military targets along the front lines and against military targets in the Croatian towns of Knin, Benkovac, Obrovac and Gracac and the Bosnian town of Drvar, according to the brief.
"Even employing its own range of error standard, the Trial Chamber presumed that of the approximately 1205 artillery rounds fired into these Croatian towns,
about 1140 (or 94.5%) were directed at military objectives. The 94.5% presumption is consistent with the overwhelming weight of the evidence," the defence said, citing the findings of UN investigations after Operation Storm, a US on-site investigation, a report by the UN secretary-general to the Security Council and the testimony of Gotovina's chief of artillery, Marko Rajcic.
"The Trial Chamber could not establish beyond reasonable doubt that any civilian had been killed or injured by HV (Croatian Army) shelling, and the damage to civilian structures was minimal," the brief said. The Chamber unreasonably concluded, based on the remaining 5.5% of projectiles hitting allegedly civilian areas, not civilians or civilian objects, that "whole towns were treated as targets," it added.
"The presumption of innocence required the Trial Chamber to presume that a round of artillery was fired at a military objective unless proven beyond reasonable doubt to have been fired unlawfully. The Trial Chamber created its own range of error standard based on no evidence," the defence said.
The Trial Chamber concluded that Serb civilians left Knin, Benkovac, Obrovac and Gracac due to fear created by the artillery attack despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the defence said, citing an evacuation order issued by Serb leaders and adding that no Serb civilian ever claimed to have been terrorised by any unlawful HV shelling, or to have left Croatia as a result of such unlawful HV shelling.
Despite the evidence, the Trial Chamber concluded that Gotovina made a significant contribution to the joint criminal enterprise by failing to prevent and punish crimes, the defence said, also rejecting as erroneous other conclusions of the Trial Chamber about the general's participation in the joint criminal enterprise.
