The president of the Hague war crimes tribunal, Patrick Robinson, on Monday gave the "Gotovina and Markac" case to five judges from the appeals chamber - Mehmet Guney, Fausto Pocar, Andresia Vaz, Theodor Meron and Carmel Agius.
Two of judges on the appeals chamber - Meron (US) and Pocar (Italy) - are former tribunal presidents and have been with the UN court 10 years, like Guney (Turkey) and Agius (Malta). Vaz, from Senegal, the first woman president of the Supreme Court in her country, came to the Hague tribunal in 2005.
The defence teams of Croatian generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac last week announced appeals against a trial chamber ruling of April 15 sentencing Gotovina to 24 and Markac to 18 years' imprisonment for participation in a joint criminal enterprise aimed at forcibly and permanently driving out Serbs from occupied parts of Croatia during and after the August 1995 Operation Storm.
A third Croatian general indicted with them, Ivan Cermak, was acquitted and released. The acquittal became final after prosecutors did not appeal the ruling.
