Croatian Parliament Deputy Speaker and former Interior Minister Ivan Jarnjak said on Tuesday that the prison term of 27 years given by the ICTY to former Yugoslav Army chief Momcilo Perisic was too short and condemned it.
"It absolutely shows that they (the Hague-based UN tribunal) were too harsh towards the Croatian generals (Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac), if Perisic has received 27 years," said Jarnjak after the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) rendered a non-final judgement in the case of Perisic, accused of war crimes in Bosnia and missile attacks on Zagreb on 2-3 May 1995, when Jarnjak served as the interior minister.
The ICTY found guilty Perisic of aiding and abetting the 42-month-long siege of Sarajevo, aiding and abetting the war crimes in Srebrenica and of failing to punish his subordinates over the artillery attacks on Zagreb. The UN court cleared him of the charge of responsibility for extermination of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica.
The ICTY trial chamber found that the during the missile attacks on Zagreb, when seven civilians were killed and around one hundred were injured, the Croatian Serb rebel forces "perpetrated the crimes of murder as a crime against humanity, murder as a war crime, inhumane acts as a crime against humanity, and attacks on civilians as a war crime."
General Gotovina was given 24 years and General Markac 18 years by the ICTY trial chamber on 15 April. The appellate proceedings in their case are under way.
