Defence counsel for Croatian General Ante Gotovina will contest the findings of the trial chamber about Croatian indiscriminate artillery attacks during 1995's Operation Storm with expert analyses by US military officers who found that Croatian artillery acted in compliance with established military doctrines and that the criterion which the trial chamber set to define the indiscriminate nature of shelling was unreasonable, according to a defence motion filed on Friday to introduce new evidence in the appeal proceedings before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.
The trial chamber found that Croatian artillery hit too wide of the military targets and was therefore indiscriminate, and concluded that civilian areas were targeted based on an order issued by Gotovina because he aimed to drive out the Serb population.
"The 200 meter finding by the court is totally inconsistent with the science and practice of artillery and rocket fire," retired US Army Lt. Gen. Wilson A. Shoffner said in his expert report.
In addition to his, the defence also submitted expert analyses of two other retired US Army officers -- Major General Robert Scales and General Ronald H. Griffith, who also questioned the reasonableness of the standard set by the trial chamber regarding the allegation of indiscriminate shelling.
The trial chamber's ruling says that all artillery hits that fell outside the 200-metre radius from a military target were indiscriminate.
To challenge this idea, the defence also aims to use NATO reports and a book by General Kosta Novakovic, assistant commander of the main staff of Croatian Serb rebel forces, in which he described where the Serb brigades were deployed during Operation Storm. The book was published after the presentation of evidence and Novakovic's testimony in the trial. The defence said the book showed that Novakovic did not testify truthfully because he withheld information about a Serb military presence in the Knin area.
The defence cited a NATO report on a NATO air strike against Serb anti-aircraft positions at Knin and Udbina, adding that this contested the finding of the trial chamber that only the Croatian army could target the Knin area with artillery.
To challenge the trial chamber's findings about Gotovina's authority to speak in public, the defence moved to introduce a Croatian army order of 25 January 1995 prohibiting army officers from making public statements without permission from the Defence Ministry.
