A. The Lasva Valley: May 1992 – January 1993
341. In its discussion of Article 2 of the Statute, the Trial Chamber explained that the armed conflict in question was an international conflict. In that connection , it pointed out that the objectives of the Croatian nationalists in Croatia were clearly shared by many members of the HVO and the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna (HZHB): Mate Boban, president of that community, but also Anto Valenta (leader of the HDZ in Vitez and later President of the HDZ for the HZHB), whose nationalistic writings were revealing; Ignac Kostroman (Secretary-General of the HZHB) and Dario Kordic whose speeches inflamed the Bosnian Croats. The example given by the Trial Chamber is from the minutes of a meeting held on 12 November 1991, signed by Mate Boban and Dario Kordic: "the Croatian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina must finally embrace a determined and active policy which will realise our eternal dream – a common Croatian state".
342. Those nationalists could not accept that the Muslims could want to have their own defence. On 10 April 1992, Mate Boban decreed that the Bosnian Territorial Defence (TO), which had been created the day before, was illegal on HZHB territory. The Croatian General Roso confirmed the proscription by an Order of 8 May 578 . On 11 May, Tihomir Blaskic implemented that Order declaring the TO illegal on the territory of the Kiseljak municipality. Tensions continued to increased between May 1992 and January 1993. The Trial Chamber will now set out a brief summary of the important events of the period since they were at the root of the torching of the Lasva Valley in April 1993.
1. The exacerbation in tensions
343. In the municipality of Vitez, as in many others, the rivalries between communities and the struggle for political power started in November 1990 with the election of the members of the Municipal Assembly 579 . The Croatian Democratic Union party won most of the seats, followed by the SDA, made up mainly of Muslims and the Communist Party. Ivan Santic, a Bosnian-Croat, was elected President of the Assembly, which was responsible, inter alia, for the police and for defence. The Municipal Council, an executive body, was chaired by a Muslim, Fuad Kaknjo 580 .
344. Tensions increased in November 1991 with the formation of the HZHB. The creation of that institution marked the beginning of the breakdown in inter-ethnic relations in Vitez 581 . Several political and social events, the most important of which are briefly summarised here, demonstrate the HDZ's desire to take progressive political and social control of the town and to initiate a policy of discrimination towards the town's Muslims, whereas an independent Muslim political organisation was being set up in tandem.
345. In March 1992 the last meeting of the Vitez Municipal Assembly took place. A Crisis Committee, officially supervised by the Municipal Assembly, chaired by Ivan Santic and made up of five Croats and five Muslims, was set up in order to cope with the problem of refugees in Vitez 582 .
346. In April 1992, the Leader of the HDZ in Vitez, Anto Valenta, told the SDA representatives that they should take their orders from the "Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna" 583 .
347. On 20 May 1992, an ABiH soldier was killed in front of the Vitez Hotel and two others were captured and beaten. Nothing came of Prosecutor Vladomir Miskovic's investigation 584 .
348. On 18 June 1992, military formations of the HVO took over the headquarters in Vitez and the Municipal Assembly building and raised the flags of Herceg-Bosna and of Croatia 585 .
349. On 12 July 1992, Muslim political leaders created the Co-ordination Committee for the protection of Muslim interests under the Chairmanship of Fuad Kakjno. That Committee addressed numerous public statements about the daily problems facing Muslims in Vitez to the government of BH, to the HVO and to UNPROFOR 586 .
350. On 20 October 1992, the first clashes between Croatian and Muslim forces occurred in Ahmici. Muslim forces sought to block the passage of Croatian troops coming from Busovaca. According to the Defence, these troops were going as reinforcements to the Serbian front in Jajce 587 . The Muslims wanted to stop the Croatian forces for fear that they were in fact going towards Novi Travnik where clashes had broken out between Croatian and Muslim forces 588 . On 19 October 1992, roadblocks were erected on the main road linking Busovaca to Vitez and Travnik 589 , especially at Ahmici 590 . One of them had been set up by a unit of twenty or so Muslim soldiers based at Ahmici 591 , on the orders of the headquarters of the territorial defence 592 .
351. On 20 October 1992, Dario Kordic is alleged to have ordered the Muslims to take down the blocks and threatened to set their village alight 593 if they did not. According to the Witness Abdullah Ahmic, the roadblock was taken down by the Croatian forces as early as 06:30 hours 594 whereas General Blaskic stated that it was only lifted at 18:00 hours 595 . However, the clashes were not limited to the taking down of the roadblock, as attested to, inter alia, in the accused's report dated 21 October 1992. That report shows not only that "the barricade in the village of Ahmici, Vitez municipality, was completely destroyed and the Muslim forces were driven out of the village and crushed entirely" 596 . The witness Abdullah Ahmic explained that the HVO had first of all fired on the minaret of the Donji Ahmici mosque after the Muslims had used the mosque to call for the Croats to surrender their arms 597 . It is alleged that the HVO then began an infantry attack on the village, from 08:00 hours to nightfall 598 , setting four houses and ten stables 599 alight with incendiary bullets 600 . According to the Witness Abdullah Ahmic, 80% of the village was evacuated and a young boy was killed 601 . General Blaskic reported that one HVO soldier and one territorial defence soldier were dead and that a few buildings around the roadblock had been burned down.
352. According to the witness HH, the operation was led by Mario Cerkez 602 . According to the accused, however, the action was carried out by the Military Police 603 .
353. The consequence of those clashes was the disarming of the Muslim troops stationed in Ahmici 604 and in the surrounding villages. Witnesses Abdullah Ahmic 605 and Casim Ahmic 606 stated that Muslims in the Zume 607 area had been disarmed during the cease-fire negotiations which followed the clashes. Likewise, the witness O testified that the inhabitants of Santici had had to surrender their arms to Nenad Santic, HVO Commander in Santici, shortly after the clashes caused by the roadblock 608 .
354. General Blaskic's afore-mentioned report noted that the Muslim troops in Ahmici were entirely disarmed after the attack and the village of Ahmici placed under the exclusive control of the HVO. However, General Blaskic declared before the Trial Chamber that the HVO had stopped exercising control of the village between 20 and 25 October 1992 as soon as a local cease-fire between the HVO and the ABiH was signed 609 . According to General Blaskic , a joint municipal committee was then set up 610 and operated until 4 November when the Muslim leaders chose not to participate in it any longer 611 .
355. The Trial Chamber considers that the attack on the roadblock at Ahmici on 20 October 1992 was not unlawful and that, given the circumstances, the damage caused to certain dwellings were actions which General Blaskic could not prevent and which he had not ordered. It considered however that the events were characteristic of increasingly strident nationalistic attitudes and that they led to the Muslim population of Ahmici being disarmed.
356. In November 1992, General Blaskic organised the command structure, transformed the municipal headquarters into brigades and set up the CBOZ's headquarters in the Hotel Vitez 612 . Furthermore, the municipality introduced new taxes, asked members of staff to sign a declaration of allegiance to the new Government, threatening those that did not obey with dismissal 613 . Many Muslims were refused access to public institutions because they had refused to sign the declaration 614 and they were unable to get the laissez-passer necessary to drive on the roads that the HVO had taken over 615 . Finally , the Chairman of the Vitez Red Cross (Sead Cajnic) was replaced by a Croat, who forbade the registration of Muslim refugees on his lists. They were sent back to Muslim municipalities 616 .
b) The municipality of Busovaca
357. Many significant social and political events also occurred in Busovaca during 1992 and demonstrated the HVO authorities' resolve to take over all the powers of the municipality and to exclude Muslims from them.
358. At the celebrations for the first year of Croatian independence, which were held on 16 January 1992 at the Town Hall in Busovaca 617 , influential members of the HDZ, including Dario Kordic, Vice-President of the HZHB and Ignac Kostroman, General-Secretary of the HZHB, made extremely nationalistic speeches 618 , which were evidence of their ambitions at the time: they publicly expressed their wish to see the creation of a sovereign Bosnian-Croatian State and for that State to be attached to Croatia 619 .
On 10 May 1992, Dario Kordic and Ivo Brnada, Commander of the HVO municipal headquarters took the following decisions 620 :
- to revoke the arms distribution agreement 621 which had been concluded with the Territorial Defence 622 ;
- to seize "all weapons, equipment, material as well as the barracks" 623 ;
- to issue an ultimatum to all military units calling on them to surrender their weapons and "to place themselves under HVO command" 624 ;
- to issue a decree mobilising all Croatian military forces 625 ;
- to impose a general curfew 626 ;
- to seize the "Public Security Section" and to create the "Busovaca Police Station " 627 ;
- to make the HVO Military Police exclusively responsible for the maintenance of law and order 628 ;
- to take control of "the PTT building" 629 ;
- to prohibit "the passage [of] all carriers passing of through the territory of our municipality" 630 ;
- and finally, to dissolve the "Municipal crisis committee" and to confer its powers on the HVO 631 .
360. Then, by a decree dated 22 May 1992, Dario Kordic and Florian Glavocevic, President of the HVO Command in Busovaca, gave the HVO general administrative powers over the municipality. They provided that:
The internal organisation and the responsibilities of the government bodies of the (Busovaca) Municipal Assembly will be regulated by a special order by the (Busovaca) HVO Municipal Command […] 632 .
They also decreed that:
because the HVO of the Busovaca municipality is leading the whole organisation of life and defence of Busovaca, the Busovaca Municipal Assembly, Busovaca Municipal Executive Council and the Busovaca Municipal Crisis Command will not do their duties any more, nor will they make any decisions, until the conditions are improved 633 .
361. After those two decrees had been adopted, tension considerably increased between the Croatian and Muslim communities during the remainder of 1992 and their relations deteriorated:
- legal power holding organs were abolished 634 ;
- Muslims were progressively excluded from all structures with any powers 635 ;
- the HVO seized the television broadcasting station at Skradno and created its own local radio and television 636 ;
- the HVO seized the town hall, the post office, the police, the post and telecommunications 637 buildings and those of the other public institutions 638 ;
- the HVO set up roadblocks on all major roads and controlled movement of persons and goods going through the municipality 639 ;
- the Croatian flag was raised over, inter alia, the police station, the town hall and the post and telecommunications building 640 ;
- the Muslims were forced to sign an act of allegiance to the HVO in order to be allowed to work 641 ;
- the Croatian Dinar was imposed as the unit of currency 642 ;
- an increasing number of armed Croatian soldiers 643 wearing military uniform were see moving about the streets of Busovaca 644 ;
- there were numerous attacks on businesses and shops belonging to Muslims 645 ;
- and finally, Muslims gradually left the area fearing that they would be the victims of crimes 646 .
c) The municipality of Kiseljak
362. As in the municipalities of Vitez and Busovaca, several incidents occurred in Kiseljak in the period from April to November 1992 that demonstrated the HVO authorities' resolve to take political and military control of the Kiseljak municipality.
363. Many events showed that during 1992 the local HVO authorities seized the civil, political and military powers in the municipality progressively and with increasing violence.
364. The most significant event during that period was the creation, on 21 April 1992 , of a crisis staff in which Croatians had an absolute majority 647 . It took over the powers of the Municipal Assembly although under the constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina, only the Municipal Assembly is entitled to exercise those powers 648 . That crisis staff, which was at the root of many discriminatory measures taken against the Muslim authorities and population, took the following significant decisions:
- on 23 April 1992, it set up the HVO Headquarters in the municipality of Kiseljak , of which General Blaskic was appointed head also on that day 649 ;
- on 27 April 1992, it assigned the Kiseljak barracks, which had hitherto belonged to the JNA 650 , to the HVO 651 ;
- on 12 May 1992, it ordered that all the "manpower, material assets and technical equipment of the reserve structure of the Public Security Station" be made available to the HVO 652 ;
- on 25 May 1992, it cancelled "the giro account of the Municipal TO /Teritorial Defence / Staff and nullifieSdC the use of the seal of this body" 653 ;
- on 25 May and 1 June 1992, it requisitioned the quarters of the former JNA for the benefit of HVO officers 654 , including Tihomir Blaskic 655 , Ivica Rajic 656 and Mato Lucic 657 ;
- on 15 June 1992, it imposed the Croatian Dinar "on the territory of the Kiseljak municipality as the currency of account […]" 658 and ordered that "all commercial service companies [were] obliged to display the prices of products and services in CRO (Croatian) Dinars" 659 , and finally
- on 25 June 1992, the crisis staff unilaterally renamed the "Executive Committee of the Kiseljak Municipal Assembly" the "Croatian Defence Council of Kiseljak", made up exclusively of Croatian representatives 660 .
365. Other incidents occurred during that period and should also be pointed out by the Trial Chamber because of their discriminatory impact on the Muslim population of the region:
- the municipal authorities raised the Croatian flag over the town hall and the police station as soon as they had seized them 661 ;
- the authorities imposed Croatian as the language to be used in schools 662 ;
- the HVO took over most of the roadblocks in the area 663 and the Croats appropriated part of the humanitarian aid destined for Muslims, in particular those in the enclave of Tuzla 664 ;
- the Croatian authorities made it a requirement for Muslims wishing to cross these roadblocks to obtain a laissez-passer beforehand 665 ;
- the HVO appropriated a large part of the weapons which had been in the Kiseljak barracks 666 , despite the decree dated 6 May 1992 issued by the Municipal Crisis Staff which provided that "those weapons [should] be distributed proportionally between ethnic groups" 667 ;
- the HVO gradually excluded the Muslim authorities from power at the local level 668 ;
- the Croatian authorities took over the Kiseljak schools, public enterprises 669 , Post Office, the medical centre and the police station 670 ;
- the HVO appropriated Muslim business premises 671 ;
- the authorities created a radio station which broadcast nationalist propaganda 672 ;
- HVO soldiers moved about in military uniform in the municipality and intimidated the Muslim population;
- members of the police force in the Kiseljak municipality were forced to wear the Croatian crest on their uniform 673 as from April 1992;
- General Blaskic expelled the Territorial Defence from the former JNA buildings on 14 May 1992 674 ;
- at the beginning of August 1992 the HVO arrested Sead Sinanbasic, the Commander of the Territorial Defence in Kiseljak, and detained him for several weeks in the Busovaca prison 675 ;
- during the month of August 1992 the HVO launched attacks on the villages of Duhri 676 , Potkraj 677 , Radanovici and Topole 678 and these attacks involved more violent incidents, including setting fire to homes where Muslims lived and vandalising their businesses 679 ;
- many Muslim civilians who feared attack started to leave the Kiseljak enclave as from the summer of 1992 680 .
366. In sum, during 1992 discriminatory acts were regularly carried out against the Muslim authorities of Vitez, Busovaca and Kiseljak and against the Muslim population of those municipalities. Those acts sought to exclude those Muslim authorities from civil, political and military functions for the benefit of HVO representatives. They made life so onerous for Muslim civilians at that point that many of them decided to leave the area and to move to other municipalities where they were in the majority . Those who chose, despite everything, to remain in those municipalities had to accept that they would be subject to persecution by a political and military regime 681 increasingly hostile to them.
367. In those three municipalities, tensions increased between Muslim and Croatian populations , with incidents breaking out especially when one party thought it could gain a tactical or strategic advantage: control of a village, a town, former military warehouses or a road. Provocation and incidents increased, such as raising a Croatian flag over public buildings or the abduction of officers of Croatian origin. The first acts of destruction of mosques and Muslim houses, the first murders of civilians and the first acts of pillage occurred. On a small territory, groups of refugees , some Croatian but most Muslims, forced to leave their homes by Serbian forces, were joined by internal movements of displaced Muslim populations forced from their dwellings by the Croats.
2. The Vance-Owen Plan and the January 1993 conflicts
368. Those were the conditions in which the Vance-Owen Plan was presented, on 2 January 1993, at the first plenary session of the Bosnian parties, summoned to Geneva by the International Conference for the former Yugoslavia. That peace plan proposed , inter alia, a decentralised Bosnia-Herzegovina, organised into ten provinces , each one substantially autonomous and administered by a democratically elected local government. According to the explanation given by one of the Trial Chamber's witnesses, the whole logic of the plan was one of power-sharing with predominance of one nationality in certain zones but not without denying the other nationalities . Power was to be exercised with respect for minorities. That witness also testified that the plan could only be implemented if the parties co-operated perfectly, since they would both have to make concessions as regards not only the territory over which they had nominal control, but also government of their population and the setting up of their administration.
369. According to the Vance-Owen Plan, the Lasva valley would largely be in Province 10, and the rest (Southern part of the Kiseljak municipality) in Province 7 (Sarajevo ). Province 8 (Mostar) extended from Bosnia-Herzegovina's Southern border with Croatia to Prozor and Konic in the North. The Plan assigned the main responsibilities in Provinces 8 and 10 to the Croats and in Province 7 to the Muslims. In the minds of Croatian nationalists, and in particular of Mate Boban, this meant that Province 10 was Croatian. However, he believed that lands, which were historically Croatian , would end up in Province 7 and thus would be lost to them. He considered it necessary to ensure Croatian domination in the regions in question.
370. The Croats, and in particular the Bosnian-Croats, provoked an open conflict between Croats and Muslims in central Bosnia by anticipating the implementation of the Vance -Owen Plan then by wanting to implement it unilaterally.
371. The first violent clashes broke out in January 1993. On 15 January, Bruno Stojic , Head of the HZHB Defence Department, called for the ABiH forces to surrender to the authority of the HVO in Bosnian Provinces 3,8 and 10 or to leave these territories before 19:00 hours on 20 January 682 . Paragraph 3 of the ultimatum also provided that:
unit members of the HVO Armed Forces and BH army […] who refuse to leave the region and acknowledge the superior command shall be regarded as members of paramilitary units and shall be disarmed and arrested.
372. In the face of the Muslim forces’ refusal to obey the ultimatum, Croatian forces embarked on a series of actions intended to implement the "Croatisation" of the territories by force. The Muslim community was subjected to of an increasing number of acts of aggression: ill treatment, plunder, confiscation, intrusion into private homes, beatings, thefts, arrests, torching of homes and murder of prominent Muslims 683 . Hundreds of Muslims were arrested and many were imprisoned in Kaonik in the former JNA warehouses. Many were beaten . Most of them were forced to dig trenches, often in inhumane conditions, exposed to enemy fire, beaten or even killed, and sometimes serving as a human shield.
373. Tensions were high. The British Battalion military information summary of 16 January 1993 recorded the presence in the region of "extremists on [both the Muslim and Croat] sides, who do not appear to be under the control of their respective commanders " 684 , who made the situation worse .
374. Following the Muslim army commanders' refusal to obey the ultimatum, HVO forces launched an attack on the town of Busovaca during the night of 20 to 21 January 685 .
375. Indeed, by order of 16 January 1993, General Blaskic placed all troops on the highest state of alert, in particular those of the HVO, the Vitezovi Unit and the Military Police Fourth Battalion and called upon them to prepare for battle 686 . Three days later, on 19 January, soldiers from the Vitezovi Unit were placed under his command by General Petkovic 687 , and with the help of the Ludvig Pavlovic Brigade, they carried out reconnaissance operations on troop movements of the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina 688 . The following evening, and further to the ABiH authorities' refusal to obey Bruno Stojic's ultimatum, on the orders of Bozo Rajic 689 , the HZHB Defence Minister, the HVO launched attacks against Muslims in the Busova ca region, attacks which, as we have already stated, were at the root of torching of businesses and private homes. Croatian forces fired on eight businesses belonging to Muslims and damaged them using explosives, including grenades 690 . These forces also looted private Muslim homes 691 and killed a soldier of the Territorial Defence 692 . Subsequently, according to the report drawn up by Major Vinac, Deputy Commander of the Vitezovi, a battalion of fifteen soldiers from that unit was sent to the Busovaca zone on 26 January 1993 693 . The report also stated that that battalion was still there on 9 February 1993 694 .
376. According to the British Battalion's report of 21 January 1993, this was "a pre- planned, co-ordinated attack on the Muslim population" 695 . That report also stated that roadblocks had been set up at each end of the town, on 20 January between 20:00 hours and 21:00 hours 696 . The telephone lines were also cut a few hours before the start of the offensives 697 .
377. Other attacks followed. On 24 January 1993, the HVO set fire to around 19 Muslim houses in Busovaca and forced out their inhabitants 698 . It kept some of them in Kaonik prison 699 . On 25 January 1993, Croatian forces 700 shelled the Grablje and Merdani villages 701 , which caused many civilians to flee 702 . Those two villages were however defended by ABiH units from Visoko and Maglaj 703 and Muslim artillery pounded Busovaca from Grablje 704 .
378. Even if the HZHB Ministry of Defence did order the attacks, the accused was directly responsible for their implementation, because he was the commander in charge of the units deployed on the ground at the time of the criminal acts.
379. It should be noted that at the same time, similar incidents were occurring in the municipality of Gornji Vakuf. On 17 January 1993, Zivko Totic, local commander of the HVO, ordered the ABiH commander to place himself under the authority of the HVO 705 . Following the refusal to carry out that order, the HVO launched attacks against the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina 706 on 19 January 1993 at 00:30 hours and set fire to several Muslim villages in the area 707 . According to Major Short who personally went to these places after the attacks:
it became apparent to me that a number of villages had been reduced to ashes and in one particular area had actually been blown up using military explosives 708 .
Despite Mate Boban's order to stop fighting on 19 January 1993, hostilities continued until 27 January 1993 709 .
380. Throughout the period from January to April 1993, the Muslim population would continue to be subjected to increasing persecution from the Croatian political and military authorities. Many civilians left the area to go to Kacuni or Zenica. According to Witness FF's account,
things became more and more complicated, and practically, factually speaking, we became two different sides, even though there was no conflict between us yet, but the HVO worked independently on their own, organised their life and the Bosniaks on the other side organised themselves and prepared for defence on their own and they did this in the area of Kacuni which is also a part of the Busovaca municipality 710 […] As a result of all these events, the Bosniak people as such were totally negated, there was a ban on assembly , they were thrown out of work, their nationhood was completely denied and what was considered to be the highest value was belonging to the Croatian people, whereby all the values of the individual were denied 711 .
381. There were considerable efforts made by the ECMM and UNPROFOR first of all to try to get prisoners released and secondly to contain the conflict. A joint Committee was appointed in Busovaca on 13 February.
382. On 27 January 1993, General Blaskic gave an order that firing should cease within 24 hours 712 . The same day, he received a report from Franjo Nakic, Chief-of-Staff, summarising the situation 713 . That report announced however that there would be future conflicts in Vitez, in Busovaca or in Kiseljak. It was noteworthy in that it used expressions like "to create feelings of insecurity and fear on the enemy side" and especially "the enemy regrouped their forces and entered our villages" 714 or "our forces disarmed the villages of Strane and Skradno where 100 rifles were captured" 715 . A relatively calm situation prevailed until April 1993.
383. Still the report predicted that the conflict would explode in April 1993 and the following months. The Trial Chamber will now examine the conflict municipality by municipality and will look separately at the questions concerning the detention of Muslims by Croatian forces.
1. Ahmici , Santici , Pirici, Nadioci
384. The villages of Ahmici, Santici, Pirici, Nadioci, situated about 4 to 5 kilometres from the town of Vitez 716 , belong to the municipality of Vitez. According to the last official census taken in 1991 , the municipality had 27 859 inhabitants, made up of 45.5% Croats, 5.4% Serbs, 41.3% Muslims and 2.8% other nationalities 717 . These villages are about 1000 meters away from each other and their total population was about 2 000 inhabitants 718 . Šantici , the biggest of the villages, had a population of about 1 000 inhabitants, the majority of whom were Croats 719 , whereas Pirici, the smallest of the villages, was a mere hamlet with a mixed population 720 . Nadioci was also a village with a substantial majority of Croats 721 . Ahmici had about 500 inhabitants 722 , of whom about 90% were Muslims 723 , which meant 200 Muslim houses and fifteen or so Croat ones 724 .
385. On Friday 16 April 1993 at 05:30 hours 725 , Croatian forces simultaneously attacked Vitez, Stari Vitez, Ahmici, Nadioci, Šantici , Pirici, Novaci, Putis 726 and Donja Veceriska. General Blaskic spoke of 20 to 22 sites of simultaneous combat all along the road linking Travnik, Vitez and Busovaca 727 . The Trial Chamber found that this was a planned attack against the Muslim civilian population.
a) A planned attack with substantial assets
386. Several factors proved, beyond a doubt, that the 16 April attack was planned and organised.
387. The Trial Chamber notes, first of all, that the attack was preceded by several political declarations announcing that a conflict between Croatian forces and Muslim forces was imminent. Mate Boban issued an ultimatum requiring the troops of the Bosnian army on the territories of provinces 8 and 10 under the Vance-Owen Plan, to surrender their weapons or to leave these territories 728 . Witness Mujezinovic alleged that in early March 1993, Dario Kordic had stated on television that the "Muslims would disappear from Bosnia" 729 . Several witnesses who lived in the area at the material time moreover reported that the accused and Dario Kordic had declared during the course of a television interview broadcast on 15 April 1993, that "their soldiers" stationed in the bungalow at Nadioci had been attacked by Muslim forces and that consequently the negotiations with the Muslims had to be broken off since only war could resolve the matter 730 .
388. The declarations were made together with orders issued by the political authorities to the Croatian population in Herceg-Bosna. In particular, on 14 April, Anto Valenta ordered the Croatian officials in the of municipalities in central Bosnia to impose a curfew from 21:00 hours to 06:00 hours and to close the schools until 19 April 731 .
389. The evidence showed moreover that the Croatian inhabitants of those villages were warned of the attack and that some of them were involved in preparing it. Several witnesses, who lived in Ahmici at the material time, testified that Croatian women and children had been evacuated on the eve of the fighting 732 . The witness Fatima Ahmic furthermore stated that a Croatian neighbour had informed her that the Croatian men were holding regular meetings and preparing to "cleanse Muslim people from Ahmici" 733 . Witness S testified that the same thing happened in Nadioci: several Croatian families were said to have left the village several days before the attack and a Croatian neighbour is alleged to have advised the witness to hide 734 . The witness Abdullah Ahmic stated that an "enormous" rally of Croats from Ahmici and the neighbouring villages had taken place on Sunday 11 April 1993 735 . Witness M gave evidence of having seen that many armed soldiers in uniform had gathered in the house of Ivica Kupreskic the day before the attack 736 . Witness HH stated that the Dzokeri stationed in the Nadioci bungalow 737 spoke of an attack on Ahmici long before it had actually occurred. They were even alleged to have advised the witness to warn his friends or his family living in Ahmici to leave the village 738 .
390. The method of attack also displayed a high level of preparation. Colonel Stewart stated that he had received many reports indicating an increased presence of HVO troops shortly before the events 739 . The witness Sefik Pezer also said that on the evening of 15 April he had noticed unusual HVO troop movements 740 . On the morning of 16 April, the main roads 741 were blocked by HVO troops 742 . According to several international observers, the attack occurred from three sides and was designed to force the fleeing population towards the south where elite marksmen, with particularly sophisticated weapons 743 , shot those escaping 744 . Other troops , organised in small groups of about five to ten soldiers, went from house to house setting fire and killing 745 . It would seem that a hundred or so soldiers took part in the operation 746 . According to the witness Thomas, the attacks in the built-up areas, such as those carried out in the Ahmici area were "operations [were] planned in minute detail" 747 . According to Colonel Stewart, the attacks on the villages of Ahmici, Šantici, Pirici and Nadioci needed about half a day's planning 748 . The attack was carried out in a morning 749 .
391. All the international observers, military experts for the most part, who went to the site after the attack had occurred, stated without hesitation that such an operation could only be planned at a high level of the military hierarchy 750 .
392. The accused himself also consistently expressed that view. Both in the statements he made shortly after the attack in April 1993 and before the Trial Chamber, General Blaskic expressed his conviction that this was "an organised, systematic and planned crime" 751 .
393. Like Trial Chamber II in the Kupreskic case 752 , the Trial Chamber therefore finds, and this finding is not open to challenge and was indeed unchallenged, that the attack carried out on Ahmici, Nadioci, Santici and Pirici was planned at a high level of the military hierarchy.
394. According to the Prosecution, those participating in the attack were not only the Military Police Fourth Battalion and in particular the Dzokeri stationed at the bungalow in Nadioci, but also the Vitezovi, the Viteska brigade of the municipality of Vitez, the Nikola Subic Zrinski brigade of Busovaca, together with Domobrani units (units set up in each village in accordance with a decision from Mostar dated 8 February 1993 753 ) stationed at Ahmici, Santici, Pirici and Nadioci 754 .
395. According to the accused, the Military Police Fourth Battalion and its special unit , the Dzokeri, carried out the attack 755 . The Defence specifically maintained that no regular unit of the central Bosnia operational zone took part in the fighting 756 .
396. The Trial Chamber notes that many witnesses mentioned the presence of soldiers in camouflage uniform or dressed in black. Their faces were painted and they had sophisticated equipment 757 . According to several witnesses, the black uniform had been that of the "Ustasha" during the Second World War 758 . It was worn by the Dzokeri , an anti-terrorist squad with twenty or so members 759 , created in January 1993, from within the Military Police on the order of Zvonko Vokovic 760 , and whose mission was to carry out special assignments such as sabotage or ant-terrorist operations 761 . Other witnesses also noticed that some soldiers wore white belts which were a distinctive feature of the HVO Military Police 762 .
397. The evidence given however proved that the Military Police was not the only unit involved in the actions. The Vitezovi, special HVO unit created on 10 September 1992 763 and placed under Dario Kraljevic's authority also wore black uniforms 764 and several witnesses stated that they recognized their emblem on the uniform of some of the soldiers 765 . According to a few witnesses, HVO soldiers themselves sometimes wore black 766 . The witness Ellis stated that the accused sometimes wore that uniform himself 767 . Owing to the apparent confusion displayed by some witnesses and stemming from the fact that different troops wore similar uniforms, the Trial Chamber was unable to conclude with certainty that the Vitezovi participated in the operations on these villages. The Trial Chamber notes in this connection that the Kupreskic Trial Chamber did not make a finding that the Vitezovi were present during the attack on Ahmici. Many witnesses also referred to soldiers in camouflage uniforms being present 768 , wearing the HVO insignia 769 and some even claimed to have seen soldiers wearing the emblem of the HV 770 . Exhibit D245 showed that on 14 April, 20 members of the Viteska brigade of the HVO were stationed in Nadioci, 12 in Šantici and 19 in Dubravica. Those soldiers were part of the first company of the first battalion of the Viteska brigade and were under the command of Slavko Papic. Several certificates, issued by the HVO, certified that on the day of the attack soldiers who were members of that brigade were wounded in the sector in the exercise of their duties 771 . Witness Parrott, who was then a sergeant with the Cheshire Regiment, went on a Warrior to the Ahmici area and saw HVO soldiers recognisable by their emblems and badges . They wore either a very dark green uniform or black fatigues and had small arms (assault rifles or similar weapons) 772 . Finally, other witnesses noticed emblems depicting an oak leaf 773 .
398. Several Croatian inhabitants of these villages participated in these operations as members of the HVO. The witness Abdullah Ahmic in particular gave the names of a certain number of local HVO commanders, who were each responsible for a specific sector. They were members of the Domobrani. Those named included Slavko Milicevic for the Donji Ahmici sector, Zarko Papic for the Zume area, Branko Perkovic in Nadioci , Zoran Kupreskic in Grabovi (an area in the centre of Ahmici), Nenad Santic 774 and Colic 775 in Santici.
399. There was a certain amount of indirect evidence attesting to HVO participation. In particular, several witnesses stated that, on the day of the attack, the telephone lines had been cut 776 . Indeed, all the communications exchanges in the municipality of Vitez were under HVO control 777 .
400. The Trial Chamber therefore finds that not only the Military Police, and especially the Dzokeri Unit, but also regular HVO units, and in particular the Viteska brigade 778 , took part in the fighting on 16 April 1993.
401. Oral evidence also established beyond a doubt that those troops acted in a perfectly co-ordinated manner. The witness Abdullah Ahmic stated that he saw soldiers wearing the emblem of the HV acting in concert with HVO soldiers 779 . The witnesses G 780 , H 781 and Zec 782 also indicated that the soldiers worked in a very co-ordinated manner. Several witnesses declared that the soldiers worked in groups of five to ten, each of these groups having differently -coloured ribbons attached to their arms 783 . Those troops communicated by way of little Motorola radios or walkie-talkies 784 . The witness Morsink noted on this point that HVO soldiers normally wore these portable radios 785 . Moreover, a superior of the accused was of the view that the Viteska brigade must have co-operated with the Military Police in the operation against Ahmici 786 .
b) An attack against the Muslim civilian population
402. The Defence put forward different arguments in order to explain the fighting 787 . First of all, it pointed to the strategic nature of the road linking Busovaca and Travnik 788 . That road was controlled by the HVO at the material time 789 , but the HVO intelligence services are said to have noted a movement of Muslim troops on 15 April from Travnik towards Ahmici and the neighbouring villages 790 , which led them to believe that the Muslims were seeking to regain control of the road. That submission could not however be deemed to have been sufficient justification for the attack on the villages which with the exception of Šantici, were not directly on the main road 791 . Furthermore the accused said in his evidence that the HVO's intelligence services had informed him that ABiH forces from Zenica were moving towards Mount Kuber, a strategic point in the Lasva Valley from which, he stated, it was possible to control the whole valley 792 . It was alleged that shots had been heard on 15 April in the area around Ahmici 793 . Another justification given was terrorist activities carried out by the ABiH, in particular the abduction on 15 April in Zenica of Major Totic 794 .
403. A report from the command of the Military Police Fourth Battalion (Pasko Ljubi cic), transmitted to the accused on 16 April 795 , alleged that Muslim forces had attacked the Dzokeri's bungalow early that morning . The Trial Chamber cannot however accept that that incident was the source of the conflict. The extent and the planned character of the attack in which several units took part in a perfectly co-ordinated manner would be sufficient to discount that justification. The Trial Chamber also notes that the accused had addressed an order to the Croat forces before he had even received that report 796 . The accused acknowledged that the information was incorrect and that its sole purpose was "to justify further activities" in Nadioci and Ahmici 797 .
404. The Defence also invoked the presence of units of the 325th ABiH Mountain Brigade in Ahmici 798 and the neighbouring villages. General Blaskic claimed that the command of these units was located at the primary school in Ahmici 799 . But documents submitted in support of that assertion mention only the village of Ahmici with no further details as to the number of soldiers, the amount of equipment there or the precise location of their headquarters. Moreover, the "defense" orders issued by the accused on the eve of the attack did not mention the presence of the 325th Brigade at all. Those orders, and in particular the order issued on 15 April at 15:45 hours 800 , only refer to the threat which the seventh Muslim Brigade allegedly posed.
405. General Blaskic claimed that, in the night of 15 to 16 April, HVO members informed him that soldiers from the first and seventh brigades of the ABiH were coming towards Vitez by truck. These were soldiers going home on leave to Krusica and Ahmici. The HVO maintained that those soldiers were drunk and excited 801 . There again, that information was not enough to justify the attack. On the contrary , it highlighted the fact that the soldiers were on leave and were not preparing to fight in the municipality of Vitez.
406.The Defence also explained that "authorised CBOZ military activity at times included a legitimate military tactic known as fighting in built-up areas (FIBUA)" 802 defined by the witness Thomas as "clearing of a built-up area on a house-by-house area" 803 , usually with automatic weapons and grenades. The Defence recognised that such a tactic often results in many victims, the number of which may even exceed that of the hostile soldiers. The Defence submitted however that those civilian victims should be considered " collateral casualties" 804 and that such an attack could be legal in certain circumstances. That is an incorrect interpretation of Witness Baggesen’s statements to the Trial Chamber. He said that on the contrary there could be no justification for the death of so many civilians 805 . Furthermore, General Blaskic himself acknowledged in his oral evidence that the tactic normally used by professionals avoided all combat operations inside villages 806 . The witness Landry, who was an ECMM monitor from February to August 1993, also explained that in "this kind of cleansing operation, especially for an area of tactical significance […], you would destroy certain buildings or houses, […] those areas which containSedC some sort of military munitions but it was quite usual […] to actually go ahead and burn a village" 807 . He went to Ahmici on 16 April and noted however that there was no longer any military presence there in the evening of 16 April 808 whereas that morning he had noticed a high concentration of HVO troops on the main roads linking Vitez and Zenica 809 . According to that witness: "if this village did have some tactical importance, perhaps it would have been for the HVO to be able to consolidate their position and to maintain some sort of observation post or stop post for the military operations" 810 . And he added: "it is very difficult for me to say from a military perspective, to say what was the military reason to carry out such a carnage" 811 .
407. The Trial Chamber also notes that much of the evidence contradicted the Defence submission that the ABiH forces were preparing for combat. Witness Abdullah Ahmic , inter alia, described the armed Muslim units present in the Ahmici area in April 1993 to the Trial Chamber. According to his testimony, the territorial defence was starting to organise in the area and consisted of about 120 men 812 whose main task was to carry out night watches 813 . According to that witness, their participation was purely voluntary and there was no disciplinary sanction for those who failed to take their turn on guard 814 . It was therefore a sort of civil defence 815 rather than an army strictly speaking. The members of the territorial defence were very badly equipped and most of them were dressed as civilians and did not think of themselves as soldiers 816 . There was no barracks in Ahmici 817 . Witness Hadzihasanovic confirmed this information, stating that owing to the lack of men and of equipment, and in particular of barracks, the only armed presence in the village of Ahmici and those nearby was a territorial defence unit from Zenica in case of a Serb parachute attack 818 . The Trial Chamber notes moreover that the HVO had already disarmed the Muslim forces in these villages in October 1992, following the conflicts which occurred when a roadblock was erected by Muslim forces on the main Busovaca to Vitez road at Ahmici . 819
408. The international observers who gave evidence before the Trial Chamber unanimously confirmed that those villages had not prepared for an attack. According to the ECMM monitors, there were no Muslim troops stationed in Ahmici 820 . Colonel Stewart stated that on 15 and 16 April, he saw no ABiH formation ready to carry out an attack in the Lasva Valley 821 . He did, however, receive numerous reports suggesting a reinforced HVO presence shortly before the events 822 .
409. Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas, UNPROFOR commander at the material time, went to Ahmici on 17 April 1993 and stated that he saw no evidence suggesting that there had been a conflict between two separate military entities, nor any evidence of resistance such as trenches, sandbags or barbed wire indicating the presence in the village of an armed force ready for combat 823 . Furthermore, the bodies he saw were not in uniform 824 and not a single weapon was found in the destroyed buildings 825 . On the contrary, there were women and children amongst the bodies strewn on the ground 826 . The witnesses Watters 827 , Bower 828 , Stewart 829 , Landry 830 , Parrott 831 , Kujawinski 832 and Ellis 833 stated that they had seen the same thing. In its second periodical report on the human rights situation on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, the Commission on Human Rights even found that "by all accounts, including those of the local Croat HVO commander and international observers, this village contained no legitimate military targets and there was no organised resistance to the attack" 834 . The accused himself admitted before the Trial Chamber that the "villagers of Ahmi ci, that is Bosniak Muslims," had been the victims of the attack without there having been any attempt to distinguish between the civilian population and combatants 835 .
410. The Trial Chamber is therefore convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that no military objective justified these attacks.
411. Although the village of Ahmici had no strategic importance which justified the fighting , it was however of particular significance for the Muslim community in Bosnia. Many imams and mullahs came from there. For that reason, Muslims in Bosnia considered Ahmici to be a holy place 836 . In that way, the village of Ahmici symbolised Muslim culture in Bosnia. The witness Watters was certain that Ahmici had been chosen as a target for that reason 837 .
412. The eyewitnesses who saw the attack all describe the same method of attack 838 . It began between 05:00 hours and 06:00 hours, that is to say when the inhabitants were asleep or at their prayers. Woken by a detonation caused by artillery fire 839 , the inhabitants did not attempt to defend themselves but hid in their houses, most of them seeking refuge in their cellars. Some time after the artillery shots, soldiers organised in groups of between five and ten 840 went into each Muslim house shouting insults against the Muslims, referring to them as "balijas" 841 . The groups of soldiers sometimes forced the inhabitants out of their houses, without however allowing them the time to dress. Most of them were still in their night-clothes, some not even having had time to put anything on their feet before fleeing 842 . The soldiers killed the men of fighting age at point blank range and set fire to the Muslims' houses and stables with incendiary bullets, grenades 843 and petrol 844 . Some houses were torched before their inhabitants even had a chance to get out.
413. Some inhabitants were transferred to the school in Dubravica 845 . According to the Commission on Human Rights, "approximately 150 Muslims were rounded up and detained for sixteen days in the Braca Ribara school in Dubravica. […] The vast majority of those detained were women and children" 846 .
414. Most of the men were shot at point blank range. Several witnesses described how the men of their families had been rounded up and then killed by Croatian soldiers 847 . To cite only a few examples, the witness Abdullah Ahmic described how, after having lost his father and his brother , he was himself severely wounded by a bullet 848 . The witnesses Nura Pezer and H stated that they had lost their son and husband during the attack 849 . The witness Zec saw his parents and two of his sisters murdered 850 . The international observers also saw bodies lying in the road 851 , many of whom had been killed by a bullet to the head fired at short range 852 .
415. Twenty or so civilians were also killed in Donji Ahmici as they tried to flee the village. The fleeing inhabitants had to cross an open field before getting to the main road. About twenty bodies of people killed by very precise shots 853 were found in the field. Military experts concluded that they had been shot by marksmen 854 .
416. Other bodies were found in the houses so badly charred they could not be identified and in positions suggesting that they had been burned alive 855 . The victims included many women and children 856 . The British UNPROFOR battalion reported that: "SoCf the 89 bodies which have been recovered from the village, most are those of elderly people, women, children and infants" 857 . An ECMM observer said he had seen the bodies of children who, from their position, seemed to have died in agony in the flames: "some of the houses were absolute scenes of horror, because not only were the people dead, but there were those who were burned and obviously some had been - - according to what the monitors said, they had been burned with flame launchers, which had charred the bodies and this was the case of several of the bodies" 858 .
417. According to the ECMM report, at least 103 people were killed during the attack on Ahmici 859 .
418. According to the Centre for Human Rights in Zenica, 180 of the existing 200 Muslim houses in Ahmici were burned during the attack 860 . The Commission on Human Rights made the same finding in its report dated 19 May 1993 861 . Prosecution exhibit P117 also showed that nearly all the Muslim houses had been torched, whereas all the Croat houses had been spared 862 . The witnesses Bower 863 and Casim Ahmic 864 confirmed the information . The witness Nura Pezer stated, on this point, that the day before the attack, she had seen a Croat from the village, named Ivica Vidovic, who, in the presence of another man, was pointing out the Croat houses and the Muslim houses 865 . The British UNPROFOR battalion reported having seen houses burning in Šantici on 17 April 866 . According to the ECMM observer Morsink, practically all the Muslim houses in the villages of Ahmici, Nadioci , Pirici, Sivrino Selo, Gacice, Gomionica, Gromiljak and Rotilj had been burned 867 . He stated that the houses had all been set alight with petrol and oil 868 . Likewise, according to the witness Watters, the Muslim houses had been systematically burned in Nadioci, Ahmici and Šantici 869 . The witness Baggesen, ECMM observer, reported that "it was a whole area that was burning" 870 . The report of the Joint Busovaca Commission, dated 21 April, showed that the ICRC had made enquiries that afternoon in Ahmici and noted that all the Muslims situated in Ahmici-west had left and that 90% of the houses together with the area's mosque, had been destroyed 871 . The report stated moreover that about 200 Muslim women and children were crowded into 3 houses in Novaci, and that half of them wished to be evacuated 872 .
419. Several religious edifices were destroyed. The Defence did not deny the destruction of the mosque at Donji Ahmici or of the matif mesjid 873 at Gornji Ahmici. However, it did maintain that the reason for this destruction was that "the school and church in Ahmici became locations of fighting following the attack by the Fourth Military Police Battalion" 874 .
420. Conversely, the Prosecutor contended that "both mosques were deliberately mined and given the careful placement of the explosives inside the buildings, they must have been mined after HVO soldiers had control of the buildings" 875 .
421. The Trial Chamber notes at the outset that according to the witness Stewart, it was barely plausible that soldiers would have taken refuge in the mosque since it was impossible to defend 876 . Furthermore , the mosque in Donji Ahmici was destroyed by explosives laid around the base of its minaret 877 . According to the witness Kaiser, this was "an expert job" which could only have been carried out by persons who knew exactly where to place the explosives 878 . The witness Zec stated that he had heard a Croatian soldier speaking on his radio asking for explosives "for the lower mosque in Ahmici" 879 . The destruction of the minaret was therefore premeditated and could not be justified by any military purpose whatsoever. The only reasons to explain such an act were reasons of discrimination.
422. The Trial Chamber notes that that mosque had just been built. The inhabitants of Ahmici had collected the money to build it and were extremely proud of its architecture 880 .
423. It is undeniable that the matif mesjid in Gornji Ahmici was destroyed 881 . The ECMM also noted the destruction of the mosque in the eastern quarter of the village 882 .
424. The soldiers also set fire to the stables and slaughtered the livestock 883 as the accused noted himself when he visited the site on 27 April 884 . Several Croatian soldiers were also alleged to have stolen money from private individuals . One member of the Dzokeri was alleged to have seized DM 2000 and jewels belonging to Elvir Ahmic 885 . Two HVO soldiers were alleged to have taken money from Haris Hrnjic’s wallet after he had surrendered 886 . It was also alleged that DM 400 were taken from the body of Alija Ahmic 887 . The witness Casim Ahmic 888 also accused a group of five Croatian soldiers of stealing DM 300-400. The victims of these thefts were always Muslim. Finally, the witness Akhavan reported seeing HVO soldiers looting the houses that were still intact in Ahmici when he visited the village on 1 May 1993 889 .
425. The methods of attack and the scale of the crimes committed against the Muslim population or the edifices symbolising their culture sufficed to establish beyond reasonable doubt that the attack was aimed at the Muslim civilian population. An ECMM observer noted that, further to his visit to Ahmici on 22 April 1993, "apart from the systematic destruction and the religious edifices that had been dynamited, what was most striking was the fact that certain houses remained intact, inhabited even, and one wondered how those islands had been able to survive such a show of violence" 890 . Several international observers who went to the village a few days after the attack on Ahmici reported finding "a phenomenon of a ferocity and a brutality almost impossible to describe" 891 . The accused went to Ahmici on the morning of 27 April and noted the scale of the damage: houses burnt , livestock slaughtered and an entirely deserted village 892 . He conceded, both to the Commission on Human Rights representatives on 5 May 1993 893 and in his testimony 894 before the Trial Chamber that crimes had been committed in Ahmici.
426. Witness Baggesen said of the attack on Ahmici: "We think that this operation, military operation against the civilian population was to scare them and to show what would happen to other villages and the Muslim inhabitants in other villages if they did not move out. So I think this was an example to show" 895 , especially given what Ahmici symbolised for the Muslim community.
427. The Commission on Human Rights noted that all the Muslims had fled from Ahmici. Only a few Croats had remained 896 . According to the witness Kajmovic, the Ahmici Muslim population had completely disappeared in 1995 897 . According to the Centre for Human Rights in Zenica, the four Muslim families living in Nadioci had been exterminated 898 . As an overview, the Muslim population in the canton of Vitez dropped from 41.3% in 1991 899 to 33.83% in 1995 900 , a reduction that also saw very great movements of population within the area. According to witness Kajmovic, only 80 Muslims, that is to say 0.49%, were still living in the territory of the Vitez municipality in 1995 901 .
428. All that evidence enables the Trial Chamber to conclude without any doubt that the villages of Ahmici, Pirici, Šantici and Nadioci had been the object of a planned attack on the Muslim population on 16 April 1993.
d) General Blaskic's responsibility
429. The accused himself did not commit any of the crimes set out above. He could therefore be liable only for ordering, planning, inciting or otherwise aiding and abetting the crime, in accordance with Article 7(1) of the Statute. By default, he could, however, be convicted on the basis of Article 7(3) if it was established that he was the superior of the perpetrators of the crimes and that he did not take the necessary measures to prevent such acts or to punish the perpetrators thereof.
430. The Prosecutor claimed that the accused gave the order to attack the villages of central Bosnia on 16 April 1993 to the Viteska brigade, to the Nikola Šubic Zrinski unit, to the Military Police Fourth Battalion, including the Dzokeri special unit, to the Vitezovi and to the Domobrani of the villages in question. Irrespective of their nature - written, oral, express or implied - those orders instructed all the units to destroy and burn the Muslims’ houses, to kill the Muslim civilians and to destroy their religious institutions. 902 .
431. As indicated earlier, the accused himself considered that, in view of its scale and very short duration, the Ahmici massacre must have been organised 903 . He further considered that the order to commit that crime could not have come from the Commander of the Military Police Fourth Battalion. The Commander did not have sufficient standing, in his view, to take the initiative for an operation of such magnitude alone. Consequently, the accused admitted that the order came from a higher authority in the hierarchy 904 .
432. The accused did however deny that he gave an order capable of justifying such acts . In support of that claim, the Defence submitted three orders given by the accused the day before the attack 905 which it put forward as being "defence" orders following a report from the HVO Busovac a intelligence services, dated 14 April 1993, notifying him of a probable attack by the ABiH on Vitez from Zenica, through Vrohdine and Ahmici 906 .
433. The first order submitted is dated 15 April and was allegedly transmitted to the units concerned at 10:00 hours 907 . It was addressed to the Military Police, the Vitezovi and to the HVO operative zone brigades 908 . The "preparatory combat command" 909 asked the brigades to keep themselves in readiness to carry out a decisive defence operation and instructed the Military Police to ensure that the Muslim forces did not block the main road linking Travnik to Busovaca 910 . The accused also ordered the Vitezovi to keep themselves in readiness for any intervention and the HVO brigades to defend their area. The reasons relied upon in this order were: combat operations to prevent terrorism aimed at the HVO and ethnic cleansing of the region’s Croats by extremist Muslim forces.
434. The second order is dated 15 April at 15:45 hours 911 . According to the witness Marin 912 , that "order for action" was given in response to information from the HVO intelligence services pointing to a general mobilisation in Zenica of Muslim forces assumed to be arriving via Mount Kuber 913 . The accused further referred to the abduction of Commander Totic by the ABiH at Zenica on 15 April, which allegedly caused a great frenzy in the population and was described by the accused as "pure terrorism" designed to eliminate the Commanders of the HVO brigades 914 . The enemy designated in that order was the seventh Muslim brigade which the order accused of being responsible for a new wave of terrorist activities. That order was addressed to the Vites ka brigade of the HVO and to the Military Police Fourth Battalion. They were asked to ensure that "combat readiness […] be increased to the highest level" and that they were ready "to take defensive action". Paragraph 2.4 states that those units must show perfect co-ordination and promote team work while ensuring that the members of the command of all the units are completely interchangeable over a 24 hour period. The order further called on those units to ensure total control of the consumption of all products, particularly fuel and to take measures to rationalise consumption. The accused also required there to be organised a system of uninterrupted command at all levels and regular reports to be submitted to him at 18:00 hours and 06:00 hours each day, together with special reports where events so warranted . Even though the order was not an order to carry out combat operations, the accused admitted that action could be taken by virtue of that order in particular to combat terrorist activities 915 .
435. A third order, which again referred to "planned terrorist activities" on the part of the enemy and to the risk of its engaging in an open offensive designed to destroy everything Croatian, was given on 16 April at 01:30 hours and addressed to the Viteska brigade and to the Tvrtko independent units 916 . That "combat command order to prevent attack activity by the enemy" ordered Commander Cerkez and the Tvrtko independent units "to occupy the defence region, blockade villages and prevent all entrances to and exits from the villages". The order stated that "in the event of open attack activity by the Muslims", those units should " neutralize them and prevent their movement with precise fire" in counterattack. That order indicated that the forces of the Military Police Fourth Battalion, the N. S. Zrinski unit and the civilian police would also take part in the combat 917 . The order required the forces to be ready to open fire at 05:30 hours and, by way of combat formation, provided for blockade (observation and ambush), search and attack forces 918 . General Blaskic stated in that order that "the commander of the Vitez HVO brigade, Mario Cerkez is personally responsible to me for the performance of this mission". The order closed by saying that the "instruction given previously Sshould beC complied with ", although the Trial Chamber was not able to establish what that instruction was .
436. A cease-fire was agreed between the representatives of the ABiH and the HVO on about 12:30 hours on 16 April under the aegis of UNPROFOR 919 , following which General Blaskic ordered the N.Š.Zrinski brigades to stop fighting immediately 920 .
437. The Trial Chamber finds that the third order 921 , dated 16 April at 01:30 hours is very clearly an order to attack. That order, which was addressed in particular to the Viteska brigade, also expressly mentions other units, such as the Military Police Fourth Battalion, the forces of the N. Š. Zrinski unit and the forces of the civilian police which were recognised on the ground as being those which had carried out the attack. The time to commence hostilities which is set out in that order corresponds very precisely to the start of fighting on the ground. Admittedly, the order is presented as "a combat command order to prevent attack activity by the enemy". Accordingly, the attack purportedly formed part of a defensive rather than offensive strategy. However the Trial Chamber has already concluded that no military objective justified that attack. It is therefore unnecessary here to go back over the reasons given for the issue of that order, which, in any event, remains an order to attack. The Trial Chamber considers that that evidence sufficed to show that all those troops, acting in concert, attacked on the accused’s order.
438. Apart from the fact that nothing has been adduced to substantiate the claim that an imminent attack justifying General Blaskic’s attack order, the question is whether the troops acted beyond the accused’s orders.
iii) The accused ordered an attack aimed at the Muslim population
439. The Defence submitted that all the crimes committed in the Ahmici area were carried out by the Military Police, in particular its special unit, the Dzokeri. According to the Defence, the accused did not control those troops, who, at the time when the crimes were committed, came directly under the Ministry of Defence of the Croatian Community of Herceg-Bosna in Mostar.
440. The Trial Chamber pointed out in this regard that the evidence established on the contrary that the crimes committed were not the work of the Military Police alone but were also ascribable to the regular HVO units, in particular, the Viteska Brigade and the Domobrani.
441. The trial showed that, in addition to the regular units placed under the direct authority of the accused, a number of independent units were acting in the territory of the Central Bosnia Operative Zone, units for which the accused denied responsibility . It is therefore necessary to appraise the control exercised by the accused over those different units.
a. The accused’s control over the Viteska brigade and the Home Guard ( Domobrani)
442. There is no doubt whatsoever that the Viteska Brigade was directly answerable to the accused 922 . The order of 16 April, which triggered the attack, again stated this 923 .
443. The Domobrani also were under the direct orders of the accused 924 . On 6 April at 10:00 hours, he called a meeting of all the Domobrani commands of the villages of Travnik, Vitez, Novi Travnik, Kresevo, Fojnica, Kakanj, Vares, Žep ce, Zavidovici, Maglaj and Usora so that they could work out the arms and materiel which each had at its disposal. The accused stated again, in the order calling the meeting, that "the commands of the Domobrani units are responsible to me for the conduct of the command" 925 .
444. The Defence however depicted the Croatian troops in Bosnia as bands of "armed villagers ", very much influenced by local alliances. The lack of qualified officers, of training and of equipment for the troops as well as a inadequate communication system would explain that such crimes could have been committed. Thus without challenging the accused’s de jure authority, the Defence submitted that he had no de facto authority over his troops 926 .
445. The accused explained that the Viteska brigade was in the process of being created 927 . The brigade had been set up by an order of 12 March 1993 appointing Mario Cerkez as commander 928 and was not yet very well organised as of 16 April.
446. Yet the accused congratulated himself on several occasions on how perfectly well organised and controlled his troops were 929 . The witness Mujezinovic also stated that in Vitez, the HVO had very well organised and very well armed troops 930 . According to several international observers, the HVO had very precise organisation charts defining everyone’s tasks and areas of responsibility. The hierarchy seemed very clear, with each unit having a number, an area of activity and a grade 931 . The witness Bower stated that the military personnel were generally well trained since they had been trained in the JNA, which provided for two years of military service 932 .
447. The Defence further maintained that the accused had insufficient means of communication . Being blocked in the basement of Hotel Vitez, he claimed he had only two telephones and a packet-transmission system, which did not enable him to maintain constant contact with all the troops deployed on the ground.
448. According to the witness Duncan, on the contrary, the accused had a fax machine available to him together with access to a local telecommunication network 933 . He also had access to an intelligence network and a Motorola satellite communication system 934 . An ECMM observer accordingly found that the communications facilities available to the Bosnian Croat army were generally relatively good 935 . According to the witness Morsink, the HVO controlled all the communication centres covering the municipality of Vitez and decided who could have access to the network 936 . According to that witness, the HVO officers carried mobile radios 937 of the sort carried by Croatian soldiers during the attack on 16 April. Witness Baggesen, for his part, mentioned that radio equipment was present at the Hotel Vitez 938 .
b. The control exercised by the accused over the special units
449. According to the Defence, a number of "special" units acted outside the accused’s de jure and de facto control. The accused claimed that those special units had been set up on the initiative of the Defence Department of the HZHB and answered directly to that ministry. Although they could be deployed throughout the territory of the community of Herceg-Bosna, in particular in the Central Bosnia Operative Zone, these units remained under the sole command of the civilian authority of the Ministry of Defence of the HZHB. Thus, according to the accused, "SnCone of these units were ever part of the Central Bosnia Operative Zone structure and its organisation […] They were never under the command of the main headquarters of the Croatian Defence Council" 939 .
450. This in fact tallies with what the accused said to General Hadžihasanovic, according to whom the special units of the HVO and the Military Police were under the command of someone higher up in the chain of command 940 .
451. The Trial Chamber first notes that it is inconsistent with military principles for the commander of an operational area not to have authority over all the troops acting within the confines of his area of responsibility. Witness Baggesen explained, for example, that "there was no doubt that those troops were commanded by General Blaskic . This is because, normally in the army, when a person is in command of a specific area of responsibility, he commands ipso facto all the military units located in that area" 941 . The accused himself admitted that that organisation was contrary to the principle of unity of command , albeit that principle was applied in the JNA 942 .
452. The Trial Chamber further finds that the accused gave orders with regard to the special units. Thus, on 26 September 1992, the accused gave an order providing for training for the special units 943 . Accordingly, an order of 16 January 1993 was addressed to several special units, including the Vitezovi, and to the Military Police 944 . Order 01-1-217/93 dated 18 January 1993 was addressed to all commands of all the brigades of the HVO and to the independent units of the Central Bosnia Operative Zone 945 . A number of orders of March 1993 were addressed to the HVO brigades and to the special units, in particular the Vitezovi, and the Military Police Fourth Battalion 946 . General Blaskic stated as follows in one of his orders: "brigade and independent unit commanders shall be responsible to me for carrying out the order" 947 . Other orders, dating from June 1993, which were addressed by the accused to the independent units, were submitted to the Trial Chamber 948 . The three orders submitted by the Defence as described above constitute further examples.
453. The military policy, which was established on 10 April 1993, was organised in battalions . The Fourth Battalion was in the Central Bosnia Operative Zone.
454. According to an operations report of the military policy for January to June 1993 949 , the administration and organisation of the battalions of the military policy were reorganised in January 1993 950 . It was decided in particular to form light assault companies. One of those was the Dzokeri unit, which operated in the Central Bosnia Operative Zone 951 . The report states that those units "participateSdC in the most difficult war operations achieving great success, mostly with great sacrifice" 952 .
455. For all that, although they acted in the CBOZ, the Fourth Battalion and its Dzokeri special unit were allegedly not placed under the sole authority of General Blaskic. That formation was placed under a dual chain of command as from 13 December 1992 953 , whereby the accused gave the orders for certain tasks and the administration in Mostar for others. The Defence based this claim in particular on the rules on the formation and the activity of the administration of the Military Police 954 . According to Articles 9 and 10 of that document, the accused was entitled to give orders relating to routine operational tasks of the Military Police, but was not entitled to give them combat orders, this being only within the competence of the defence department 955 . The accused further explained that the Military Police were placed under the authority of Pasko Ljubicic, who himself was answerable to the accused, but only for routine tasks, not including combat operations 956 .
456. Apart from absence of authority under the regulations, the Defence has argued that the Commander of the Fourth Battalion, Pasko Ljubicic, had considerable power in the region and did not obey the accused’s orders 957 . Accordingly, it is alleged that the accused had no de jure or de facto authority over the Military Police Fourth Battalion and the Dzokeri.
457. The accused further explained that he could not in any event take disciplinary measures against its members 958 .
458. In reliance principally on the testimony of witness Marinko Palavra, the Commander of the Fourth Battalion as from 1 August 1993, the Prosecutor argued on the contrary that the distinction referred to in these rules had become obsolete at the material time and that the accused had de facto all the powers of command over the Fourth Battalion and the Dzokeri special unit 959 .
459. The accused acknowledged that those troops could be "attached" to him 960 for ad hoc missions pursuant to specific requests 961 . He explained in this connection that certain rules provided that a commander of high rank in the military hierarchy could reinforce the units under him with supplementary units put at his disposal for ad hoc operations. According to the accused , the high command therefore defined how "a superior command ScouldC reinforce certain subordinate units with additional units, and during the period in which these combat operations SwereC carried out, ShowC such reinforcements SweCre subordinated to the commander of the overall operation" 962 .
460. The accused acknowledged that the Military Police had been "attached" to him in that way as from 15:00 hours on 15 April on the order of the Chief of the General Staff 963 . General Petkovic thereby gave an order that "all forces of the Military Police" and the special units should be attached to him in the event of an "all-out attack" 964 . Consequently, those units were subordinated to him only for the duration of the combat mission. According to the accused, the attachment took effect as soon as the commander of the attached unit placed himself under the orders of the commander of the unit to which his unit was detached 965 , that is to say, as regards the events in question and the Military Police, as from 11:42 hours on 16 April 1993 966 . The accused therefore claimed that the Military Police committed the crimes before they were attached to him.
461. The Trial Chamber observes in this regard that the accused admitted in another connection that he had a meeting in the afternoon of 15 April with the commanders of the Military Police Fourth Police, the Vitezovi and the Tvrtko special unit. He allegedly informed them during that meeting that General Petkovic had given orders that they should be attached to him 967 . He allegedly also read them the two orders D267 and D268, which, according to the accused, had not yet sent to the units concerned 968 .
462. The Trial Chamber further notes that Vladimir Santic, the commander of the first battalion of the Military Police in active service 969 , had an office in the Vitez Hotel, as the accused himself mentioned 970 .
463. A number of witnesses moreover stated, that the accused had de facto authority over the Military Police Fourth Battalion. According to witness H.H., Pasko Ljubicic received orders from the accused and never refused to carry them out 971 . According to witness Baggesen, "the only one who had command over the Military Police was Mr. Blaskic" 972 . That witness testified to the attempt by the Commander of the Travnik Military Police to abduct Dzemo Merdan as a protest against the slowness of the inquiry carried out into the abduction of four officers of the Stjepan Tomasevic brigade. When requests made by UNPROFOR and the ECMM remained unsatisfied, the commander in question abandoned this forthwith after receiving an order by telephone from the accused.
464. As far as his power to impose sanctions was concerned, the accused explained that he did not have the power directly to punish individuals guilty of abuses. On the contrary, he had to contact the soldier’s commander in the event of an abuse. It was then for the commander of the unit concerned to take the necessary measures. According to his own statements, the accused had in parallel to contact the Chief -of-Staff, who was then to contact the person responsible in the Defence Department 973 . That obligation on the accused to report any abuse committed to the competent authorities sufficed, as has been stated above 974 , to establish command responsibility.
465. That evidence confirmed that General Blaskic had command authority over the Military Police Fourth Battalion and its special Dzokeri unit during the period in question .
466. The Trial Chamber therefore cannot accept the argument that the accused did not have control over the troops acting on the ground.
iv) The massive and systematic nature of the crimes as proof that they were committed on orders
467. Lastly, the idea that these crimes could have been committed by uncontrolled elements is impossible to reconcile with the scale and uniformity of the crimes committed on 16 April in the municipality of Vitez. The Trial Chamber adopts the opinion expressed by witness Morsink, a professional soldier acting as an observer for the ECMM at the material time:
I believe that one or two minor cases may have been committed by small, uncontrolled groups, but the large-scale and systematic manner in which these events took place , entire villages being burned, and other villages, we saw that it was the Muslim houses that were systematically selected, and we saw that the same type of events were taking place at the same time period in different locations, and it would be impossible, in my opinion, for this to have been carried out by uncontrolled groups 975 .
The planned nature and, in particular, the fact that all these units acted in a perfectly co-ordinated manner presupposes in fact that those troops were responding to a single command, which accordingly could only be superior to the commander of each of those units.
468. In this connection, it is worth recalling that that was the opinion expressed by the accused himself 976 .
469. The Trial Chamber observes that the reasons adduced in order to justify the order of 16 April (D269) are based on propaganda designed to incite racial hatred. Order D267, for instance, alleges that extremist Muslim forces intended to carry out " ethnic cleansing" on the Croats in the region. Order D269 refers to the intention of the Muslim forces to destroy everything Croatian. Several international observers have stated that those words gave a very exaggerated picture as compared with the real situation 977 . According to an ECMM observer: "the fighting began without doubt on the initiative of the HVO, claiming that it was only answering a systematic anti-Croat attitude. It was obviously an attempt to seize and secure ‘Croatian provinces’" 978 .
470. The Trial Chamber further notes that those orders recommend the modes of combat that were actually used on the ground on 16 April. In this way, order D268 stresses co-ordination among the different units. It also asks the forces to take care to ensure that they have total control over fuel consumption, which was one of the main weapons used by the Croatian forces during the attack on 16 April. It is hard to image how the systematic use of petrol as a combat weapon could have been possible in that period of fuel shortage without the approval of the military and/or civilian authorities 979 . Order D269 refers to blocking (observation and ambush), search and offensive forces. The main (mountain and valley) roads between Vitez and Zenica were in fact blocked by HVO blocking forces on the morning of 16 April 980 , in particular by the Viteska brigade 981 . According to witness Landry, the area was subjected to a so-called "cleansing" operation , which was carried out by establishing a cordon outside the village by means of check points on the roads leading to the villages, whilst lighter, more mobile troops , notably search troops, carried out the "cleansing" of the village 982 .
471. The attack started with artillery fire and the Trial Chamber recalls that, according to the accused’s own statements, the use of the artillery was placed under his direct command 983 .
472. The testimony of the victims of the massacres tended to show that the civilians were killed in response to orders. Accordingly, witness Fatima Ahmic testified that she heard an HVO soldier in a van say by walkie-talkie: "Yes, the operation was successful, they are lying in front of houses like pigs" 984 . When she asked them why they had killed her son, the soldiers said that "it was the force majeure who ordered it…the orders came from above" 985 . Witness Abdullah Ahmic testified that he saw a soldier say to another soldier who refused to kill a man: "do as you are ordered" 986 . Witness Cazim Ahmic testified to what an officer, Ibrica Kupreskic, said to him: "go and run for your life. No Muslim may stay here. If they learn that I let you go, I will be executed" 987 . According to witness F, the Dzokeri and the Vitezovi said that they had been given orders to kill all the Muslims so that Muslims would never ever live there again 988 . Witness A said that he heard a person named Cicko speak in these terms with regard to the events of 16 April: "everyone is washing their hands now as regards Ahmici , but we all know that Blaskic has ordered that no prisoners of war were of interest to him, only dead bodies" 989 .
473. The Trial Chamber further finds that, in seeking to locate the centre of operations when the attack began on 16 April, the Cheshire Regiment found that it was near a sports stadium close to the Vitez Hotel 990 .
474. Even if doubt were still cast in spite of everything on whether the accused ordered the attack with the clear intention that the massacre would be committed, he would still be liable under Article 7(1) of the Statute for ordering the crimes. As has been explained above 991 , any person who, in ordering an act, knows that there is a risk of crimes being committed and accepts that risk, shows the degree of intention necessary (recklessness) so as to incur responsibility for having ordered, planned or incited the commitment of the crimes. In this case, the accused knew that the troops which he had used to carry out the order of attack of 16 April had previously been guilty of many crimes against the Muslim population of Bosnia. The order given by the accused on 4 November 1992 expressly prohibiting the troops from burning the houses 992 proves this. Moreover, the accused admitted before the Trial Chamber that he had been informed about the crimes committed by troops acting in the area for which he was responsible. In particular, the disciplinary reports were forwarded to him 993 . Likewise, the accused stated that he asked the Commander of the main general staff and the head of the Defence Department in January 1993 that the independent units be withdrawn from the Central Bosnia Operative Zone on account of the troubles they were causing 994 . Furthermore, the accused was aware that there were criminals acting in the ranks of the Military Police 995 . Witness Marin, who was a subordinate of the accused at the time, himself acknowledged that there were criminals in the ranks of the Military Police 996 . Admittedly, the accused did give an order on 18 January 1993 for the attention of the regular units of the HVO, the independent units and the Military Police Fourth Battalion instructing them to make sure that all soldiers prone to criminal conduct were not in a position to do any harm 997 . However, that order remained without effect, even though the accused issued a reminder on 6 February 1993 998 . On the contrary , according to the witness Marin the situation deteriorated thereafter 999 . The Defence also presented an order issued by the accused on 17 March 1993 requiring the commanders of all HVO brigades to identify their members who were prone to criminal conduct 1000 . Nevertheless, the Trial Chamber finds that the accused did not ensure himself, before calling on their services on 16 April, that measures had indeed been taken so as to be sure that those criminal elements were not in a position to do any harm. On the contrary, according to the accused it was not until he received the letter from Colonel Stewart on 22 April 1993 that he realised that he could not rely on the reports sent to him by the Military Police commander Ljubicic 1001 . It was not until 30 April that the accused asked the commander of the main staff to replace Pasko Ljubicic and to change the structure of that unit 1002 .
475. The Trial Chamber has further established that the Vitezovi and the Military Police Fourth Battalion took part in the fighting at Busovaca in January 1993 1003 on the accused’s orders.
476. The Trial Chamber further notes that the accused used the Military Police for subsequent operations. In particular, the attack launched against Grbavica on 7 and 8 September 1993 was carried out by the Military Police Seventh Battalion, which took over from the Military Police Fourth Battalion. Consequently, the members of that unit were the same as those who had committed the crimes at Ahmici, as the defence witness Marin acknowledged 1004 . Admittedly , the accused stated that he had removed the criminal elements once he had obtained overall control of that battalion on 23 July 1993. The accused testified that he sent off a report on 30 April concerning breaches of his orders by the Military Police and asked that disciplinary proceedings be taken against them. He further asked the Supreme Commander of the headquarters general staff to discharge the Commander of the Military Police, Pasko Ljubicic, from his duties. He further claimed that he repeated this request on 29 May and 10 June 1005 . The accused claimed that during the months of June and July, he urged the main staff to make the Military Police subordinate to the Central Bosnia Operative Zone. This request was only granted on 23 July. Pasko Ljubicic was then discharged from his duties and replaced by Marinko Palavra. According to the accused, it was not until this time that elements of the Military Police with criminal records were dismissed 1006 .
477. As the Trial Chamber has shown above, since he had reason to know that crimes had been, or were, about to be, committed, as the hierarchical superior of the forces in question, the accused was bound to take reasonable measures to forestall or prevent them. Having regard to the criteria laid down by the Trial Chamber 1007 and the facts as established by it, the Trial Chamber considers that the accused knew that crimes had been or were about to be committed and took no action as a consequence. The Trial Chamber construes the reluctance that he showed in letting the truth about the crimes committed be known as additional evidence of his guilt under Article 7(1) of the Statute.
478. The Trial Chamber is unable to believe the accused’s assertions that he was unaware until 22 April 1993 that crimes had been committed. In fact, the accused maintained that he had had no knowledge of the extent of the crimes committed until he received a letter from Colonel Stewart dated 22 April 1008 , to which he replied forthwith proposing that a committee of inquiry be set up 1009 . Apart from the fact that it is difficult to believe that the accused had no foreknowledge of an attack planned in an area coming within his area of responsibility only a few kilometres from his headquarters, several pieces of evidence disproved the accused’s assertions. The accused maintained that he was blocked in the basement of the Vitez Hotel 1010 , to which his headquarters had been transferred on account of the shelling of Vitez and Stari Vitez and which , for safety reasons 1011 , he had been unable to leave until 27 April. The accused claimed that he had no means of observing for himself the extent and exact location of the fighting and that he was also not informed by his team on account of the lack of adequate means of communication : General Blaskic asserted that at that time he had available to him only two telephones and the packet transmission system 1012 . The only information which he purportedly had on 16 April came in the report forwarded by the commander of the Military Police, Pasko Ljubicic, at 11:42 hours which mentioned neither murders of civilians nor the torching of houses 1013 .
479. In the first place, the Trial Chamber casts doubt on the claim that the accused remained in the Vitez Hotel throughout the day on 16 April. Indeed, Colonel Stewart attempted to visit him there at 10:00 hours on 16 April and was informed that Colonel Blaskic was not there 1014 . The ECMM also tried to contract the accused on 16 April and was told that he was not at the headquarters 1015 . Be that as it may, Defence exhibit D278 shows that at least two of the accused’s colleagues left the Vitez Hotel during the day of 16 April to negotiate a cease-fire with the Muslim forces at UNPROFOR headquarters at Bila 1016 . The accused said that when they returned, the two HVO representatives told him that they had seen some corpses of civilians at the side of road, but did not mention the torched houses. The accused’s explanation for this was that the HVO representatives were travelling in armoured vehicles with very small windows 1017 . For his part, witness Landry described the situation in the following terms: "we could see that there was an immense fire coming from that area" 1018 . Likewise, witness Baggesen stated that "the whole sky was illuminated like a big fire" 1019 . The Trial Chamber notes how hard those two accounts are to reconcile with each other, to the say the least
480. Moreover, a superior of the accused testified to the Trial Chamber that the accused had informed him by telephone on 18 April that some members of the Military Police had behaved in an uncontrolled manner and committed crimes 1020 . That very day, General Petkovic had sent the accused an order asking in particular that "4. reliable information should be gathered concerning the protagonists of the conflict, the expulsion of the civilian population, the killing of captured soldiers and civilians, the torching of houses and other buildings" 1021 , which order the accused caused to be forwarded to the units under his orders 1022 .
481. Further, on 20 April the accused attended a meeting at Zenica during which Dzemo Merdan, the ABiH chief-of-staff, protested about the massacre at Ahmici, where he maintained that 500 civilians had been killed. Witness Marin testified to the Trial Chamber that the accused had told him upon his return from that meeting about the crimes committed in Ahmici 1023 . The accused claimed that he had then immediately proposed setting up a joint investigating commission but the ABiH representatives had rejected this offer 1024 . The accused also stated that on that very evening he had ordered all the reports received by the command to be collected and that any report which might confirm Dzemo Merdan’s allegations be identified 1025 . However, no order requesting additional information about those events was sent to the Military Police Fourth Battalion 1026 . Furthermore, the accused made no mention of such information in the document that he sent on the following day, 21 April, to Dario Kordic, Ignac Kostroman and Ivica Zeko 1027 . His explanation for that omission was that Dzemo Merdan’s accusations had remained vague. He further told the Trial Chamber that the civilian protection units had received the order to gather up the bodies at Ahmici on 21 April 1993 1028 . Although the accused asserted that that order came from the civil authorities and not from himself, it is hard to believe that such an undertaking could have been carried out without the accused’s having been informed of the scale of the massacre .
482. Several international observers who attempted to go to the scene of the massacre stated that they encountered resistance from the HVO soldiers in control of the area. An ECMM team attempted to go to Ahmici on the morning of 16 April but was prevented from doing so by the HVO soldiers manning a roadblock at the entry to the village 1029 . Moreover, the team from the Commission on Human Rights came under fire from snipers 1030 . In addition, HVO soldiers sought to bar Colonel Stewart’s passage when he came to visit the scene on 22 April 1031 .
483. There is, moreover, a surprising discrepancy between what the accused said both before international observers and the international community and what he has said vis-à-vis the Croatian public. On 22 April he gave an immediate answer to Colonel Stewart’s letter in which he stated that he was "ready to send immediately the investigating commission to the village of Ahmici" 1032 . When he met Colonel Stewart on 24 April at 13:00 hours, he accepted that crimes had been committed in the zone for which he was responsible 1033 and, according to the witness Stewart, seemed devastated by the scale of the massacre 1034 . However, in his report to the Croatian authorities dated the same day, the accused showed no regret, remorse or anger over the crimes committed on 16 April. On the contrary, the accused complained that the international community had given a biased presentation of the events thus proving its anti-Croatian attitude 1035 . Likewise, in an interview in the magazine Danas that appeared on 5 October 1993 1036 , General Blaskic stated that the HVO were set up in Ahmici and that in any event, those crimes were the responsibility of the HOS which had a large majority of Muslims among its troops , and of the armed forces of the MOS (Muslim troops). He went on to assert that the massacres in Ahmici had been "staged and skilfully shown to […] the EC observer mission SandC Bob Stewart" 1037 .
484. It is also difficult to see how these crimes which the accused himself thought had been organised and ordered at a high level of the military hierarchy, could have escaped his knowledge, and that of Dario Kordic, Ignac Kostroman or Anto Valenta . After all, the accused held a press conference condemning the Ahmici massacre in the presence of these people on 27 April 1993 1038 .
485. Other witnesses stated that they had heard about it before 22 April. In particular , the president of the HDZ in Vitez, Anto Valenta, stated that he had been informed of it on 17 April by a report from the Central Bosnia Operative Zone. That report noted the destruction of buildings and the deaths of 70 to 80 civilians whose ethnic origin was not specified 1039 . However , according to the accused, at that time, Anto Valenta used the office of Franjo Nakic, Chief-of-Staff, which was in the Hotel Vitez 1040 . A meeting between Mate Boban and President Izetbegovic was allegedly scheduled for 18 April to discuss the situation in central Bosnia 1041 . One of General Blaskic’s superiors said that he had been informed of the scale of the massacre on 18 April 1042 and that on 19 April General Morillon had told him in Medjugorje that the Military Police had been recognized at the scene 1043 . The Defence witness DY, who was not in the military, said that he had heard about the events at Ahmici the day they occurred or the next day 1044 .
486. The Defence explained that the accused had given a whole series of orders after hearing of the Ahmici massacre on 22 April 1045 . In particular, on 18 April, he gave the order to all HVO units in his command zone not to torch homes and he transmitted that order to UNPROFOR and to the ECMM 1046 .
487. However, the accused only gave these "preventive" orders after the order to attack on 16 April 1047 . In that connection , the Trial Chamber agrees with the Prosecutor that "the preventative nature of prior punishment was lost […]. His subordinates clearly understood that certain types of illegal conduct were acceptable and would not lead to punishment" 1048
488. The efforts made by the accused to see that the crimes committed were investigated and the perpetrators prosecuted and punished were also hardly convincing. In particular , the accused did not attempt to contact the commander of the Military Police, Pasko Ljubicic, although he suspected from the outset that the Military Police had committed the crimes 1049 . Nor did he take any measures to seal off the area and ensure that evidence was preserved, despite being required to do so by Article 60 of the military discipline regulations. He did not, for example, order an autopsy on any body before it was buried 1050 , and did not attempt to interview any survivors although they were detained at the school in Dubravica.
489. The accused stated that he sought the help of international organisations, especially the ECMM and UNPROFOR, in carrying out the investigation and that he never obtained this help 1051 . However, international observers who gave evidence before the Trial Chamber challenged this version of events. The witnesses Stewart and Morsink testified that the accused had never sought their help 1052 . On the contrary, Colonel Stewart complained on 24 April that no investigating commission had been set up yet: "No-one has yet taken responsibility, and no commission has been formed ; This is a political catastrophe for the HVO; The HVO wants to destroy the Muslims " 1053 .
490. Colonel Stewart once again asked about the setting up of an investigating commission at a meeting with Anto Valenta and Tihomir Blaskic on 4 May 1993 1054 . The witness Stewart stated that no investigation had been initiated before his departure on 10 May 1055 . There was another meeting on 9 May in the presence of his replacement, Colonel Duncan, then Commander of the Prince of Wales Regiment in Central Bosnia 1056 . The accused allegedly explained to Colonel Duncan that the crimes committed at Ahmici had been carried out either by Muslims wearing HVO uniforms or by Muslim extremists who were out of control, or even by Serbs who could have infiltrated the HVO controlled zone 1057 . The witness Duncan said he asked once again for an investigation to be set up and 25 May was agreed as the date for completion of the investigation and publication of the results 1058 . According to the witness Duncan, that investigation was never carried out 1059 . Likewise, the witness Morsink stated that the ECMM had never received the findings of the investigation which was supposed to have been undertaken into the events in Ahmici 1060 .
491. Thus there were many occasions on which the accused could have asked for help from the international authorities. However, far from having been asked for such help , the authorities had, on the contrary, had to get in touch with the accused and to insist on an investigation being carried out.
492. The accused maintained that as early as 24 April, he had asked the SIS representative , Anto Sliskovic, to carry out the investigation. However, no evidence was adduced of this request. General Blaskic testified that he had made the request orally 1061 , through the intermediary of his subordinate Marin 1062 . The witness Marin did not mention such an order however. His request was in any event never fulfilled. He testified that he again met the SIS representative on 8 May and reiterated his request. It was only on 10 May that the accused gave a written order 1063 , that is to say after the bodies had been buried, the surviving eyewitnesses released from the Dubravica detention centre and Colonel Stewart replaced by Colonel Duncan. That order asked Anto Sliskovic to submit his report by 25 May at the latest 1064 . The report submitted on that date was, even in the view of the accused, "not complete " 1065 . The report concluded in fact that the attack had been initiated by Muslim forces whose artillery shots were alleged to have been the cause of most of the material damage suffered by these villages . The report also indicated the presence of "men in black" whose military affiliation was not specified and who were deemed to be responsible for the pillage and the murders. According to the report, this was the action of Muslim forces who had thus sought to draw the international community’s attention to the suffering of the Muslim population and consequently get an international force into the region. According to the report, there had been sixty or so victims of the fighting in Ahmici, which figure is much below the finding of the ECMM on 15 May 1993 1066 . It was only on 17 August that the accused asked the SIS to carry out a second investigation and to finish it by 30 September at the latest 1067 . The accused however testified that that report had never been communicated to him , Anto Sliskovic having informed him on 30 September that the results of the investigation , including the names of the guilty parties, had been transmitted to the SIS in Mostar and that the affair was no longer any of his concern 1068 .
493. He had another chance in 1994. The accused, then appointed HVO Deputy Chief-of-Staff , was put in charge, from June to October 1994, of a major campaign against ordinary crime, known as operation "Pauk" or "Spider". He broadened the scope of the operation in order to be able to investigate war crimes. In that context, he ordered an SIS officer to check whether a criminal report on the subject of Ahmici had actually been submitted. He claimed that the SIS officer told him that he was not able to find the criminal report giving the names of the suspects 1069 . The Trial Chamber further notes that the accused had not shown that he had made any sustained efforts to recover the report before appearing before the Tribunal , although that report was the item of evidence most likely to exonerate him. Consequently , these findings cast doubt on the very existence of such a report.
494. In sum, no soldier has ever been convicted for the crimes at Ahmici, Pirici, Šantici and Nadioci. The Defence witness Marin recognised that no member of the HVO or of any other unit of the Croatian forces had ever been punished for crimes committed against the Muslim population or their possessions after the Ahmici massacres 1070 . The witness Morsink testified that he had never seen the HVO authorities carry out investigations into the atrocities against the Muslims 1071
495. In the final analysis, the Trial Chamber is convinced that General Blaskic ordered the attacks that gave rise to these crimes. In any event, it is clear that he never took any reasonable measure to prevent the crimes being committed or to punish those responsible for them.
2. The events in Vitez and Stari Vitez
496. In April 1993, Croatian political and military forces controlled the town of Vitez 1072 . Access to the town was controlled by roadblocks. Towards mid-April, tension between the two communities had increased considerably in Vitez as in the whole of the Lasva Valley 1073 . On the eve of the conflict hatred towards the Muslim minority in Vitez was exacerbated , generalized and borne by the media. As the Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights explained in his 19 May 1993 report:
relatively minor incidents involving Croats are exaggerated and sensationalised. It is reported that in the days prior to the attack on Muslim civilians in the area of Vitez and the Lasva valley, a prominent local member of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) suggested on the radio, without any apparent justification, that a massive attack by government forces was imminent, that "Mujahidin" forces would destroy the entire town and commit atrocities against women and children. All Muslim residents in Vitez were identified as conspirators in this plan, portrayed as "Islamic fundamentalists " and threatened with death. This is reported to have added greatly to the climate of fear and hatred in the area 1074 .
a) The attacks committed as from 16 April 1993
497. The political and social events of 1992 and the start of 1993 led to the conflict breaking out between the HVO and ABiH troops in Vitez and Stari Vitez as from 16 April 1993. The headquarters of the two parties to the conflict were then a few hundred meters apart. General Blaskic’s headquarters were in the Hotel Vitez and the Territorial Defence headquarters in Stari Vitez were in the Muslim quarter of the town. That proximity only increased the frequency of confrontations between the two warring factions.
498. Three major events marked the period covered by the indictment: the attack of 16 April 1993, the booby-trapped lorry attack of 18 April 1993 and the attack of 18 July 1993. Those tragic events stood out because of their sheer scale and brutality 1075 .
499. On 16 April 1993, between 05:00 hours and 06:00 hours, various areas of the town of Vitez such as Kolonija (town centre), Rijeka, Stari Vitez (old town and Muslim quarter) and Novaci were shelled and then came under fierce infantry fire 1076 . Many houses were looted and torched 1077 , Muslims were arrested, segregated on the basis of their age and sex and the men of fighting age were driven to detention areas or to the battle front lines 1078 . Near Stari Vitez, in the vicinity of a building known as "the yellow building" 1079 , a group of soldiers armed with explosives attacked several cafés belonging to Muslims and looted and torched Muslim houses 1080 . They opened fire on Stari Vitez from the roof of the "yellow building" and later in the day they arrested Muslims 1081 . The attacks carried on the next day with fierce artillery fire, in particular on Stari Vitez and Novaci 1082 .
500. On 18 April 1993, a tanker containing 500 kilograms of explosives 1083 exploded near the Stari Vitez mosque. The conflagration, which was unusually intense 1084 , caused major material damage and claimed a great many victims 1085 .
501. As from 17 April 1993, and until the Washington accords of February 1994, Stari Vitez became a Muslim enclave and was under siege for ten months 1086 . The period was characterized by confrontations of varying intensity 1087 , in particular by a violent attack on 18 July 1993 1088 . That day, a great many homemade weapons known as "baby bombs" were fired on Stari Vitez and killed many Muslims. That quarter of the town was also targeted by multi -tube rocket-launchers and mortars.
b) The widespread or systematic nature of the attacks
502. Several facts bear witness to the organized and planned nature of the aforementioned attacks on Vitez and Stari Vitez.
503. According to the witness Parrott, the soldiers involved in the 16 April 1993 operation on Vitez and Stari Vitez seemed "well organized" and "appeared to be using military […] tactics" 1089 . Indeed, the attack was organized into two separate phases in order to achieve maximum efficiency. First of all, it started with an artillery attack and was followed by an infantry attack with torching of houses and expulsion of the inhabitants 1090 .
504. Several clues suggest that the attack was well prepared, in particular:
- increased control of the town by HVO forces 1091 : on 15 April, the witness Kavazovic saw groups of HVO soldiers in combat gear "who were blocking all the entrances to buildings" 1092 and explained that, on 15 April, he had been warned by a Croatian friend that "bad things were about to happen in Vitez" 1093 . That same day, the witness Pezer saw that access to the Vitez-Zenica road was closed and noted "unusual movements by HVO soldiers" and HVO members filling their vehicles with fuel 1094 . The witness Bower explained that the HVO controlled access to Stari Vitez 1095 . HVO soldiers were seen filling three tow trucks with bags of sand 1096 . Those bags were set out at the crossroads that led to the Hotel Vitez and in the old town 1097 . The witness S noticed the presence of snipers, machine guns and cannons, which were aimed at the two Muslim areas of Stari Vitez and Treskavica 1098 . Finally, on the day of the attack, the witness Ellis saw twenty or so soldiers wearing the HVO insignia at a checkpoint and more heavily armed than usual 1099 .
- Preparation of the necessary equipment: the organizers of the attack used heavy, sophisticated weaponry which was "designed specifically for air defence" 1100 . Some witnesses saw a very large calibre anti-aircraft gun mounted on a vehicle and a very modern anti-tank weapon 1101 .
- Creation of a system for regrouping soldiers and patrolling in small groups 1102 .
505. Prosecution and Defence alike described this act as terrorism, designed principally to instil a feeling of terror in the target population 1103 . The Trial Chamber has no doubt that this terrorist operation was premeditated. The organisers had to acquire a considerable quantity of explosives, organize the transportation of the booby-trapped vehicle and plan where it was to be placed (near a mosque). This evidence was sufficient to show the operation had been planned.
506. Darko Gelic, General Blaskic’s liaison officer with UNPROFOR, admitted that HVO troops attacked Stari Vitez that day and that the attack had been planned. The attack bore the same hallmarks of planning as that of 16 April 1993, in particular the organisation of the operation into two phases 1104 . Darko Gelic also confirmed that the artillery barrage was the first phase of the attack 1105 .
c) The civilian and Muslim character of the target populations
507. Generally speaking, the three attacks described above targeted the Muslim civilian population and were not designed as a response to a military aggression. At the very least, even if there had been such aggression, the assets and the method used could not be deemed proportionate to it. In each of the aforementioned events, the majority of the victims were civilians 1106 , Muslim 1107 (out of 101 civilians killed, 96 Muslims and 5 Croats were identified after the 16 April attack 1108 ) and it seems obvious that men, women and children were attacked without distinction 1109 .
508. The Defence maintained that "ABiH soldiers from Stari Vitez were continuously using civilian buildings for military purposes" 1110 and that the fighting occurred in the middle of an urban area. Consequently, any attempt to gain some of the enemy’s terrain was likely to entail greater losses and damage than are usual in other situations.
509. The Trial Chamber dismisses this approach. Granted troops from the army of Bosnia -Herzegovina were present in the town that day 1111 . But they were the ones attacked and not the other way around. There were several reasons, which emerged from the evidence of the witness Thomas, to infer that conclusion :
- there was no military installation, fortification or trench in the town on that day 1112 ;
- at the material time, the front line was fluctuating and changed from day to day depending on the commanders of the different troops 1113 ;
- until 16 April, there had been no confrontations between the HVO troops and the Bosnia-Herzegovina army. War broke out suddenly on 16 April 1993 1114 ;
- that day, there were no reports of any military victims 1115 or of the presence of soldiers from the Bosnia-Herzegovina army 1116 ;
- the Muslim military did not put up any defence because the target was not military but civilian 1117 . The houses that were torched belonged to civilians and could not in any circumstances be construed as military targets 1118 ;
- the artillery was not aiming particularly at the front lines where most of the ABiH soldiers were 1119 .
510. Consequently, it was impossible to ascertain any strategic or military reasons for the 16 April 1993 attack on Vitez and Stari Vitez. In the event that there had been, the devastation visited upon the town was out of all proportion with military necessity. On the contrary, the attack was designed to implement an expulsion plan , if necessary by killing Muslim civilians and destroying their possessions 1120 . As the witness Bower explained,
[i]t appeared to be more of a containment campaign, not to try and seize and hold the ground of Stari Vitez, but more to ensure that the occupants of Stari Vitez didn’t expand their enclave or attempt to break out of their enclave. It was more static, more containment 1121 .
The Croatian or mixed areas in the town were thus not damaged during the attack 1122 .
511. The explosion occurred near houses belonging to civilians, thus causing numerous civilian victims together with many possessions of a civilian 1123 or religious nature, such as the roof of the mosque 1124 . Not one of the victims was in uniform 1125 . It seemed that the purpose of the attack was solely to terrorize the Muslim civilians in order to make them flee 1126 . As Colonel Watters explained,
it was an act of terrorism, and certainly it was not a legitimate act of war in pursuit of military objectives. The design of terror weapons or terrorist weapons is to terrorise, and it certainly worked. The people of Stari Vitez were absolutely terrorised by it. Very many of them wanted to leave their homes 1127 .
512. The Trial Chamber inferred from the arms used that the perpetrators of the attack had wanted to affect Muslim civilians. The "baby-bombs" are indeed "home-made mortars " 1128 which are difficult to guide accurately. Since their trajectory is "irregular" and non-linear 1129 , they are likely to hit non-military targets. In this case, these blind weapons were sent onto Stari Vitez where they killed and injured many Muslim civilians 1130 . They also resulted in substantial material civilian damage 1131 .
d) General Blaskic’s responsibility
513. According to the Prosecution, the HVO and the Vitezovi committed the aforementioned crimes. The Prosecution claimed that the Vitezovi obeyed General Blaskic’s orders in the same way as the HVO troops. General Blaskic is alleged to have assigned the Vitezovi to the Stari Vitez sector on 15 April and then to have given them orders to attack the area, with the help of the HVO, on 16 April, 18 April and 18 July 1993 1132 .
514. The Defence did not deny that HVO troops were responsible for some of the attacks on Stari Vitez but considered that those troops attacked military targets and were always acting in response to an ABiH attack, thus meeting the requirement of proportionality 1133 . It stated that the above crimes were committed by the Vitezovi alone, and refused to recognize the existence of a permanent relationship of subordination between the Vitezovi and General Blaskic .
515. The Defence maintained that the Vitezovi answered directly to the Ministry of Defence of the HZHB in Mostar and were not acting, at least not in any permanent way, under the command of General Blaskic. Although the units were sometimes temporarily attached to the Central Bosnia Operative Zone, Tihomir Blaskic "did not possess the legal authority or actual ability to punish or discipline Vitezovi members" according to the Defence 1134 . It added that , during the periods of temporary attachment, "the Vitezovi, armed with the knowledge that Blaskic could not execute disciplinary or criminal sanctions against members of the unit, determined how [to] implement Blaskic’s orders. On numerous occasions the Vitezovi conducted operations of which Blaskic had no knowledge. Even when the Vitezovi was attached to the OZSB, Blaskic could not enforce any of his orders by imposing sanctions on the Vitezovi" 1135 .
ii) The individual criminal responsibility of General Blaskic
516. In limine, the Trial Chamber observes that there was no basis to the Defence’s claim that responsibility for the commission of the crimes lay with the Vitezovi alone . As the testimony mentioned above showed, HVO troops clearly participated in the attacks on Stari Vitez on 16 April and 18 July 1993.
517. There is no doubt that there was a relationship of subordination between General Blaskic and the HVO troops strictly speaking. The Trial Chamber had however to resolve the question of whether there was such a link, either structural or factual, between the accused and the Vitezovi.
518. The Trial Chamber found several clues showing that, at the material time, General Blaskic was responsible for the Vitezovi as their superior. First of all, it analyzed the tenor and content of the orders given by the accused to the Vitezovi. Then it considered the evidence given by different international observers and analyzed the orders given by persons other than the accused in the HVO chain of command in the light of that evidence. Finally, the Trial Chamber concluded that the troops could not have committed the 18 April and 18 July crimes without obeying the orders of, or at least without the assistance of, General Blaskic.
a. The accused’s orders or reports as evidence of a relationship of subordination
519. During the course of 1993, the accused drafted many orders addressed, amongst others, to the Vitezovi. According to General Blaskic, the relationship of subordination between the Vitezovi and the command of the Central Bosnia Operative Zone applied only for the duration of the assigned mission for each order given to the Vitezovi . The relationship of subordination did not apply for the whole of the period between 16 April 1993 and the Washington Accords. During that period, the Vitezovi were solely assigned to the CBOZ command without being permanently legally subordinate to it, according to the accused 1136 .
520. The Trial Chamber is unable to accept the distinction made by the accused. By analyzing General Blaskic’s orders to the Vitezovi chronologically, the Trial Chamber was able to conclude that he exercised effective control over the Vitezovi for the whole of 1993 at least, or in any event as from 19 January 1137 . The Trial Chamber considers that the distinction between the notion of temporary subordination and that of permanent attachment is a legal fiction, at least as far as the accused’s ability to give orders directly to the Vitezovi or to send a report on their potentially criminal activities to the competent authorities is concerned.
521. The orders given to the Vitezovi showed that, in 1993, there was a permanent relationship of superiority between General Blaskic and those troops giving him effective control over them. That is sufficient to prove that there was a relationship of subordination.
522. By analysing the content of the orders, the Trial Chamber was able to confirm that General Blaskic exercised effective control over the Vitezovi and that there was a permanent relationship of subordination between Blaskic and those troops. The Trial Chamber notes that the orders often related to aspects of organisation 1138 and conduct 1139 of the troops and therefore, owing to their content, were of a permanent nature, and that in any event they clearly went beyond the context of a specific operation .
523. The Vitezovi seemed to have participated to the same extent as the regular HVO troops in the implementation of the troops’ general organization. On 13 February 1993, General Blaskic asked the Vitezovi, inter alia, to organize their lines of defence, to establish "a complete record of conscripts", to carry out "a shooting test with the civilian and military police units" and to draw up additional and thorough assessments of the situation in cooperation with HVO chairmen, Heads of the Offices for defence matters and Commanders of police stations in the brigade’s zone of responsibility 1140 . On 3 May 1993, General Blaskic asked the Vitezovi to submit a list of the Croatian soldiers killed during the fighting with the ABiH 1141 and, on 26 May 1993, he enjoined those same troops to submit the data on the demographic structure of the pre-war populations by zone of responsibility in the form of a report 1142 .
524. The Vitezovi also received orders relating to the general conduct management of the troops. On 21 April 1993, General Blaskic asked the HVO regular troops as well as the special intervention forces to protect the civilian population and to ensure that the ICRC had free access and that the injured received medical treatment 1143 . On 17 June 1993, General Blaskic demanded that arrests of civilians during military actions cease and asked for religious effects to be protected. On that occasion, he stated that the brigade and independent unit commanders should be answerable to him for implementing that order and asked those commanders to let him know that it was being properly applied by way of regular reports 1144 .
525. More fundamentally, the Vitezovi obeyed preparatory orders given by General Blaskic. On 16 January 1993, the accused gave the Vitezovi an order to intensify the preparations for combat at the highest level of all the HVO formations in the CBOZ 1145 . On 15 April 1993, General Blaskic enjoined the Vitezovi to prepare for an action by the ABiH troops from Stari Vitez towards the Vitez headquarters, in the event that there would be a break through the front line. He therefore ordered the Vitezovi to hold a front line between Stari Vitez and his headquarters, a few hundred meters away from the Muslim quarter 1146 .
b. The other evidence that there existed a relationship of subordination
526. Some independent observers pointed out how effective General Blaskic’s command of the Vitezovi was 1147 . The witness Whitworth stated that those units formed an integral part of the HVO’s strategy in the Lasva Valley and that they "came under the command of General Blaskic and were used […] in actually carrying out the HVO’s military intention, establishing , strengthening and regaining ground lost to the ABiH" 1148 .
527. In the Trial Chamber’s view, the Vitezovi came under the accused’s command responsibility regardless of the legal form of their link with the Defence Ministry . An order dated 19 January 1993 1149 drawn up by Lieutenant-General Milivoj Petkovic, the HVO Chief-of-Staff, indicated that the Vitezovi were "attached in all matters" to General Blaskic and that any independent action on their part was forbidden. A witness heard by the Trial Chamber further explained that he and General Blaskic were the only two authorities who could have commanded the Vitezovi 1150 . The witness acknowledged that the Defence Minister could theoretically have given the Vitezovi orders, but stated that, in practice, he considered that it would have been impossible for the Minister to give orders without General Blaskic or himself knowing about them 1151 . He stated that the Vitezovi were attached to the operative zone and that he had never received any report saying that it was practically impossible to command those units 1152 :
Finally, in relation to […] all the problems concerning these units, I found out about them only when this trial began. Until then, I did not receive any information that these units were troublesome and that they could not be commanded 1153 .
528. Lastly, the commander of the Vitezovi, Darko Kraljevic, explained in a letter dated 15 April 1993 that his troops came under "the unified system of command and control in the SB /Central Bosnia/ OZ /Operative Zone/" 1154 . The frequency of the meetings between the accused and the commander of the Vitezovi is evidence that such a system existed. On 15 April 1993, Darko Kraljevic went to the Hotel Vitez and had a meeting with Tihomir Blaskic 1155 . The witness Kavazovic stated that he saw Darko Kraljevic three times at the Hotel Vitez in June, July and September 1992 1156 . Likewise, witness HH testified that Darko Kraljevic often went to the Hotel Vitez for meetings with General Blaskic 1157 .
529. The crimes described above were committed on a large scale and hence their execution required precise organization, determined by a general command structure . It would in fact have been physically impossible for the Vitezovi, with 60 to 80 men 1158 , to have planned and executed operationally the crimes in question on an isolated basis 1159 . They could not have procured between 450 and 700 kilograms of explosives which were placed in the booby-trapped lorry without the authorization of General Blaskic, who controlled the Vitez explosives factory 1160 . By the same token, the troops could not have undertaken the attacks on 16 April and 18 July 1993 without obeying the accused’s orders on the operational level or without his assistance. General Blaskic was the only person in Vitez entitled to authorize the use of artillery 1161 .
530. As a result, the attack of 16 April 1993, the explosion of the booby-trapped lorry on 18 April 1993 and the attack of 18 July 1993 could not physically have been carried out if General Blaskic had not given the order for their execution or at least allowed them to take place. He was the only one empowered to authorize the use of the assets necessary to carry out those operations. The quantity of arms and explosives used were clear evidence of the accused’s involvement in the organization and planning of those operations. In relation to 16 April 1993, the witness Ellis testified that:
there was an enormous amount of ammunition fired, a lot more than I had seen. […] to achieve that amount of ammunition in a particular area - - that must have been an orchestrated move to actually gather ammunition into that area 1162 .
More generally, the work of organising those operations could not have been carried out independently by the small Vitezovi unit. That unit must have had recourse not only to the material available to the accused, but also to an effective command structure, which only General Blaskic could provide. As witness Thomas explained ,
they were carried out by an organised force operating with a coherent command and control structure, operating to a certain plan 1163 .
531. The Trial Chamber considers that General Blaskic must be found guilty on the basis of Article 7(1) of the Statute of ordering the attack of 16 April 1993 on Vitez and Stari Vitez, the detonation of the booby-trapped lorry on 18 April 1993 at Stari Vitez and the attack of 18 July 1993 on Stari Vitez. At the very least, he took no step to prevent those crimes being committed or to punish the perpetrators .
3. Other villages in the municipality of Vitez
532. In the context of the conflict which rocked the municipality of Vitez, the Prosecutor drew a distinction between the villages of Donja Veceriska, Gacice and Grbavica, which were attacked by Croatian forces in April and September 1993.
533. Donja Veceriska and Gacice were two mixed villages of the municipality of Vitez 1164 . The two villages face, from opposite sides, the Slobodan Princip Selo weapons factory (hereinafter "the SPS factory") 1165 . The Defence submitted , and the Trial Chamber agrees, that the SPS factory was a sensitive position as far as the HVO was concerned 1166 . The SPS factory was one of the largest industrial complexes making explosives in Bosnia (and in Europe) and was of considerable strategic importance for both sides 1167 . Consequently, there were military reasons for fighting to gain control of the neighbouring villages. But the HVO had taken control of the SPS factory in October or November 1992 1168 , well before the events considered here. In view of the context of those operations , it appears appropriate to review the parties’ arguments.
534. According to the Prosecutor, the HVO attacked Donja Veceriska on 16 April 1993 and Gacice on 20 April 1993. The attacks against those two villages formed part of the persecution of Muslim civilians referred to in the indictment. Those villages witnessed the destruction, devastation and large-scale pillaging of Muslim-owned property 1169 . Several Muslim civilians were killed during the attacks and the Muslim inhabitants of those villages were expelled. Muslim homes were torched and looted and Croats appropriated them 1170 . The accused is responsible for all those criminal acts.
535. The Defence did not deny that the Vitezovi attacked Gacice on 20 April 1993 1171 , but it argued that the "independent " unit was acting on its own initiative, that the Vitezovi were attacking an ABiH formation 1172 and that the houses were torched as reprisals for the death of a Vitezovi soldier 1173 . The Defence further submitted that Tihomir Blaskic did not give any order to that unit concerning action at Gacice.
536. As far as the destruction carried out at Donja Veceriska is concerned, the Defence argued that it must be regarded as the collateral damage of a justified military operation and that therefore it was not the outcome of a punishable act . The HVO and the ABiH were equally (or virtually equally) matched and dwellings were burned as a result of the fighting. The Defence argued that no more than 10 % of the houses in the village of Donja Veceriska burned as a result of the fighting . There were no attacks against civilians in the sense of an intention to destroy the buildings in question, but fighting did take place in the village concerned 1174 . Furthermore, Tihomir Blaskic did not order the destruction found in Donja Veceriska . The destruction and the looting were the outcome of criminal acts which the accused could neither control nor punish 1175 .
537. As in the case of the other villages in the municipality of Vitez, the two orders given by General Blaskic prior to those attacks must be examined. First, on 15 April 1993 1176 , there was the order to the HVO brigades and the independent units, including the Vitezovi, to prepare to fight in order to defend the HVO and Vitez. There was also the order given on 01:30 hours on 16 April 1177 to fight in order to "forestall enemy attacks (extremist Muslim forces) and to block the larger territory of […] D. Veceriska" 1178 .
538. On 15 April 1993, the HVO held a press conference in their local centre attended by Tihomir Blaskic and Ignac Kostroman and during which Dario Kordic declared: " my Croat brothers, it is time to defend our Croatianhood" 1179 . Later that day, the Croatian civilians of Donja Veceriska left the village 1180 .
539. The Defence maintained that the HVO was attacked and that that provoked the conflict 1181 . The Trial Chamber considers instead that on the morning of 16 April, towards 06:00 hours, the HVO attacked the village of Donja Veceriska 1182 . During the attack, bombs fell 1183 and Croats fired on the Muslims from the SPS factory 1184 . The HVO used mortar shells and anti-aircraft gun mortars 1185 . HVO soldiers 1186 , fifteen or so members of the Tvrtko unit 1187 , other soldiers wearing black uniforms 1188 with the "U" insignia (standing for "Ustasha" 1189 ), and yet more wearing the "HV" insignia were on the Croatian side . All those groups attacked together 1190 . There were at least fifty soldiers in all 1191 .
540. The Muslims tried to defend themselves on 16 and 17 April. During those two days , houses were burned 1192 and the mekteb, the Muslim religious and cultural centre of the village, was destroyed 1193 . Muslim residents were driven from their homes by the HVO 1194 . Eight Muslims, including at least seven civilians, were killed 1195 , and others injured, including a woman called Hadzira Basic 1196 , as she was attempting to escape across the fields. When the UNPROFOR mission arrived at the top of the village on 17 April, it saw that the HVO sign had been painted on most of the houses in that part of the village. It also saw HVO soldiers, recognisable by their insignia 1197 . As regards the houses: "these were not military targets, this was just where people lived" 1198 . According to one witness, the purpose of the attack and the murders was "to intimidate us so that we would leave from there, simply to cleanse us from there" 1199 .
541. Finally, on the morning of 18 April, towards 03:00 or 04:00 hours, Muslim residents abandoned the village going on foot as far as the UNPROFOR base in Divjak 1200 . As they left the village, the column was subjected to shots from the SPS factory and three women were killed 1201 . The conflict therefore lasted until the HVO had succeeded in entering the second part of the village on 18 April 1993 1202 .
542. The Trial Chamber heard contradictory oral testimony and received contradictory evidence on the point of the ABiH participation in the conflict. According to the Prosecution, the civilians effectively put up the Muslim defence: there were only a very few members of the armed ABiH forces and only a handful of rifles 1203 . According to that argument, the Defence of the village was not organised and everyone did what he could 1204 . However, there was also evidence of a noteworthy ABiH presence. Contrary to his evidence before the Trial Chamber, one Prosecution witness stated to the Prosecutor that "only about 40 Muslim men were part of the TO from the village" 1205 and that as regards the Muslims’ retreat from the village,
The Territorial Defence was running out of ammunition so approximately one or two o’clock in the morning all civilians had to retreat from the village by following an UNPROFOR vehicle. Then the members of the Territorial Defence retreated because we were out of bullets […] The members of the Territorial Defence went to the village of Grbavica 1206 .
543. Even though the Trial Chamber could not confirm the Defence argument that there were one hundred and twenty-eight members of the armed forces among the Muslims in the village 1207 , it was not able characterise the attack as being targeted only against a Muslim civilian population . Consequently, until the Muslims’ retreat on the morning of 18 April, the conflict at Donja Veceriska was characterised as a conflict between the HVO and independent Croatian units on the one hand and the ABiH on the other. Before the retreat of the Muslims, it was not clear that the criteria of proportionality of a military attack against positions defended by the military had not been met as regards the destruction of property, nor that the injuries to Hadzira Basic and the deaths could not be considered the result of a conflict between the ABiH and the HVO.
544. The Trial Chamber notes however that much of the destruction and damage occurred after the assaults on the villages were over and the HVO had taken control of the villages. In particular, members of the HVO set fire to the Muslim houses 1208 and no-one made any effort to put out the fires. It was possible to see houses burning from the UNPROFOR base 1209 . Moreover , there was looting of property from the mekteb after the Muslim civilians had left the village 1210 . Those houses and the mekteb could not be considered to be military targets as from 18 April. The Trial Chamber considers that these events were large-scale destruction or devastation with no military necessity 1211 .
545. From the time when the conflict broke out in Donja Veceriska on 16 April 1993, the Croats and Muslims tried to negotiate in order to prevent there being problems in Gacice, but without success 1212 . The Prosecution maintained that on 17 April the HVO issued an ultimatum to the Muslim inhabitants of Gacice to surrender their arms and sign an oath of allegiance to the Croatian community of Bosnia, which the Muslims rejected 1213 . On 19 April, the day before the attack, Croatian residents (women and children) left the Muslim part of the village 1214 .
546. At 05:50 hours on 20 April, mortar fire started and shells fell 1215 . The village was pounded with shells from all sides and the attack came from three different directions 1216 . The HVO soldiers fired shots on the village from the SPS factory. In the village, there were only about thirty Muslim men with a few hunting rifles and a few bombs and grenades 1217 . The Muslims took refuge in a few houses. The men withdrew in the direction of the forest, whereas the women and children stayed in the cellars. After the shelling of the village, the Muslim inhabitants (therefore women and children for the most part) were encircled by soldiers wearing insignia such as those of the HVO, HV, U and Vitezovi 1218 . Some of the soldiers called the Muslims "balijas" 1219 and drove them out of their houses 1220 , which they then burned 1221 .
547. There were at least four Muslim deaths in the village 1222 , including a Muslim who burned in his house, Fikret Hrustic 1223 . One witness maintained that the attack against the Muslims in Gacice was "a plan , well-planned and very well organised" 1224 . According to certain sources, the ABiH held the Vitezovi responsible for the massacres in Gacice 1225 . But clearly the members of that unit were not the only ones involved in the attack.
548. The Defence contended that the village was defended by Muslim militia. The Trial Chamber heard little evidence to that effect 1226 . Even if that was the case, the torching of houses continued after the HVO soldiers and other units had taken control of the village.
549. Once the HVO soldiers had taken control of the village, they took the residents of Gacice (247 Muslim civilians) on a forced march towards Vitez and forced them to sit opposite the Hotel Vitez as human shields, for about three hours 1227 . Afterwards, they were taken back to the village and made to live in the seven houses which remained standing. Subsequently, those same people were taken in lorries and driven by force out of the village by the HVO 1228 .
550. The Trial Chamber finds that these events amount to devastation without any military necessity and forcible transfers of civilians.
551. The village of Grbavica was a mixed village 1.5 km from Stari Vitez 1229 . The Grbavica hill had a certain strategic importance 1230 , which enabled the ABiH, if it occupied it, to block the HVO and the Croatian civilians’ access to the main Travnik-Busovaca road.
552. The Prosecution submitted that the HVO attacked Grbavica on 7 September 1993. The purpose of the attack was not at issue. The HVO took Grbavica in the afternoon of 8 September 1993. Once all the combatants and the Bosnian Muslim civilians had been driven out of the village, the HVO set about systematically plundering and destroying the Muslims’ houses. Subsequently, the Bosnian Croats moved into the houses that were still habitable 1231 .
553. The Defence contended that Tihomir Blaskic authorised a legitimate military attack on the ABiH positions at Grbavica, justified by military necessity, and that all damage caused by the HVO offensive was collateral damage of a lawful military operation 1232 . Moreover, the accused did not order and was not otherwise directly involved in the looting of civilian property which followed the attack. The HVO attacked on 7 September 1993 and achieved all its goals the next day. Then, in accordance with what had been agreed, the HVO withdrew and the Vitez civilian police arrived in order to maintain law and order in the village. The acts of destruction were those of civilian looters. The civilian police tried unsuccessfully to prevent those criminal acts 1233 .
554. The parties agreed to consider that there were legitimate reasons for the 7 September attack by the HVO on the village of Grbavica 1234 . That the ABiH took part in the conflict was not at issue 1235 . Tihomir Blaskic acknowledged that he planned the military operation and personally took part in it 1236 . It was carried out in an organised military manner 1237 . The operation was carried out by HVO men Blaskic had chosen and who were under his command 1238 . Members of the Dzokeri 1239 , of the "Nikola Subic Zrinski " Brigade 1240 , of the "Tvrtko II " 1241 unit and of the Military Police 1242 took part in the attack.
555. On the first day of the attack, the HVO launched attacks using artillery and explosive devices, including "babies" 1243 . The ABiH was reinforced in the night of 7-8 September 1993, and UNPROFOR evacuated the civilian population from houses built on the Grbavica hill 1244 . On the morning of 8 September, the HVO infantry troops attacked and proceeded with the systematic rooting out of enemy soldiers and of Muslims from the houses they were occupying 1245 . Finally the HVO took control of its targets and the Vitez HVO civilian police entered Grbavica to keep law and order 1246 .
556. As far as the destruction of houses in Grbavica was concerned, the Trial Chamber accepts the idea that the ABiH was occupying certain private houses and that, consequently , those dwellings became legitimate military targets 1247 . The Defence claimed that that was the reason the houses were burned during the conflict 1248 . Moreover, the looting and the torching was said to be the result not of the soldiers’ actions but those of civilians who arrived in the village after the HVO took control, in particular criminals and unruly elements 1249 .
557. The evidence showed that in fact only a few houses were occupied by soldiers 1250 . Moreover, it was clear that many houses were burned after the fighting, including , by definition, houses that were not legitimate targets 1251 . As far as the fires were concerned, they were not necessary from a military point of view. General Duncan testified:
There was a requirement to get to the buildings on top of the hill because they represented a good defensive area, which is why it had held out for so long. There was not a requirement, in my opinion, to destroy those buildings, which is what happened, because the military worth of the buildings - on the top of the hill - was they provided the cover and protection and ability to hold a strong defensive position, which is what they’ve done. By setting fire to them, which is what happened after the initial assault, that achieved no – to my mind, […] no military purpose whatsoever 1252 .
558. As regards the pillage, the Trial Chamber does accept that civilians could have taken part, as the Defence maintained 1253 . But the testimony and exhibits clearly show that, having driven the ABiH out of the sector, the soldiers indulged in systematic pillage of the Muslim dwellings 1254 of Grbavica prior to setting them on fire:
After they had actually been through and cleared it, there was a systematic burning of all the buildings that we saw in there […] I observed numerous soldiers and […] there was some looting going on by the HVO soldiers and all the buildings had been set on fire 1255
559. The Trial Chamber favours the view expressed by the witnesses who maintained that the Bosnian Croats burned Muslim houses in order to dissuade Muslims from returning 1256 . Those acts of destruction were not justified by military necessity and acts of looting were committed.
c) General Blaskic’s responsibility
560. As stated above, the Trial Chamber accepts that the villages of Veceriska, Gacice and Grbavica could have represented a military interest such as to justify their being the target of an attack. But the Trial Chamber also observes that, at the time or afterwards, the attacks gave rise to destruction, pillage, forcible transfer of civilians, all committed by the troops the Trial Chamber has established the accused controlled.
561. The Trial Chamber points out in that connection that, for those attacks, General Blaskic used forces which he knew, according to his own testimony, were, at least in part, difficult to control, and at the very time when they were being called into question for the perpetration of earlier crimes. Finally, the Trial Chamber notes that it has established that the accused was the commander of the troops involved , including the police forces.
562. The Trial Chamber concludes that General Blaskic is responsible for the crimes committed in the three villages on the basis of his negligence, in other words for having ordered acts which he could only reasonably have anticipated would lead to crimes.
C. The municipality of Busovaca
563. As a general rule, the Defence did not deny that crimes had been committed in the villages of Loncari and Ocehnici, inter alia1257. It claimed however that Tihomir Blaskic was not responsible for those crimes .
1. The attacks against the villages in the municipality of Busovaca
564. Around mid-April 1993, at nearly the same time as they were launching offensives against villages in the municipality of Vitez and Kiseljak, HVO and Military Police troops took the villages of Loncari and Ocehnici by assault.
565. Before the April 1993 attacks, Loncari was an essentially Muslim village. At the 1991 census, it was made up of 44 Croats, 249 Muslims and 1 Yugoslav 1258 . Putis, Jelinak and Merdani were neighbouring villages.
566. In the evening of 16 April 1993, Croatian women and children, warned of imminent attacks, left the area 1259 . A few hours later, the HVO artillery pounded the villages of Jelinak, Merdani and Puti s 1260 . The civilians from these villages then fled in the direction of Busovaca 1261 .
567. In the morning of 17 April, HVO soldiers 1262 belonging to the Nikola Subic Zrinski brigade 1263 and members of the Dzokeri unit 1264 entered Loncari and systematically searched the Muslim houses, looking for men of fighting age 1265 and weapons 1266 . Twenty-five of them 1267 were arrested and taken to Kaonik prison where they were detained. Moreover, around 200 people , including women, children and old people, from the villages of Jelinak and Puti s 1268 were assembled at the mekteb of the mosque 1269 . They were threatened with death if they escaped 1270 and several of them were beaten 1271 . During that time, Croatian soldiers were torching homes and stables by dousing them with petrol 1272 . Many Muslim civilians were forced to leave the village and to go to Vrhovine 1273 . Once there, they took refuge in cellars and once again had to endure heavy shelling 1274 .
568. The houses and stables belonging to the Muslims of Loncari were torched 1275 . The houses in the villages of Jelinak and Putis were also set on fire 1276 . The livestock were burned alive 1277 . Around ten people have since been declared missing 1278 .
569. Before the April 1993 hostilities, Ocehnici was an entirely Muslim hamlet. At the 1991 census, it was made up of 33 Muslims 1279 .
570. On 27 January 1993, HVO soldiers entered the village, arrested the men of fighting age and seized their weapons 1280 . They drove them to Kaonik prison 1281 , where they were detained until February 1282 . During their detention, they were subjected to all sorts of brutality 1283 .
571. Three months later, in the afternoon of 19 April, soldiers from the Military Police , and more precisely the Fourth Battalion, acting on the orders of Pasko Ljubicic 1284 , entered the village 1285 , fired shots and systematically set fire to the houses and farms belonging to Muslims 1286 . They killed around five civilians , women included 1287 , and burned the bodies 1288 .
572. The Muslim homes in the village of Ocehnici were torched 1289 . Several people were wounded 1290 and at least five civilians were killed 1291 . Livestock were also slaughtered 1292
573. The Trial Chamber is convinced that the aforementioned crimes were organized in advance, as is evidenced by the following facts:
- the assaults on Loncari and Ocehnici were launched respectively on 17 and 19 April 1993, that is to say practically at the same time as offensives were being carried out in the areas of Vitez and Kiseljak;
- the consequences of the attacks were similar to those on the villages in the municipalities of Vitez and Kiseljak: unlawful confinement of the men of fighting age, rounding up then deportation of the elderly, women and children, intimidation of civilians by murder and beating, and systematic torching and pillage of homes and farms;
- finally and more specifically, the Croatian inhabitants of Loncari were warned of the attacks and left the village several hours before the start of the hostilities .
574. The Trial Chamber also considered that the attacks were massive. Although the Croatian soldiers mainly targeted only two villages in the municipality of Busovaca , those villages were totally destroyed and most of their inhabitants were driven out.
575. Busovaca, which had a population of two to three thousand Muslims before the hostilities, only has thirty or so Muslims living there today 1293 .
ii) The civilian and Muslim nature of the targeted populations
576. The Trial Chamber finds that the offensives were not justified by military reasons , but essentially targeted Muslim civilians and their possessions 1294 .
577. The Trial Chamber recognised that a Muslim resistance army had progressively been formed: groups of soldiers had organised themselves in order to take turns in patrolling the village 1295 . It also noted that the villages of Jelinak, Merdani and Putis together with the hamlet of Loncari were at the front line which separated the HVO forces from those of the ABiH and that there was intense fighting between the factions there. In that connection, the Trial Chamber noted that trenches had been dug, particularly in the village of Loncari 1296 . It found, finally, that the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina controlled in particular the villages of Jelinak and Merdani at the material time 1297 .
578. However, the Trial Chamber points out that the inhabitants of Ocehnici 1298 and Loncari 1299 had been disarmed before the attacks and were therefore unable to put up any resistance to the regular HVO troops’ and Military Police’s assaults.
579. More fundamentally, the Trial Chamber is convinced, given the nature and scale of the crimes committed, that the target for these troops was not only military but essentially civilian. Indeed, it was private dwellings belonging to Muslims that were pillaged and then destroyed and farms and livestock that were burned. Moreover , it was in very large part Muslim civilians who were killed or unlawfully confined or beaten, then finally driven away towards territories under the control of the Bosnia-Herzegovina army.
2. The responsibility of General Blaskic
a) The arguments of the parties
580. According to the Prosecutor, General Blaskic orally ordered the commands of the HVO units involved in the crimes to take Loncari and Ocehnici 1300 by assault and to "cleanse" them. In support of that allegation, the Prosecution relied on the fact that the villages were attacked in exactly the same way as all the villages in the Lasva Valley 1301 . Furthermore, the Prosecution maintained that regular HVO forces and members of the Dzokeri unit carried out the crimes at Loncari 1302 and at Ocehnici 1303 .
581. The Defence argued however that the accused did not order the destruction of the village of Loncari 1304 . In that connection, it said that the order given by General Blaskic to the Military Police on 16 April 1993 at 1:30 was only to defend the Vitez-Busovaca road and to prevent any attack by the ABiH from Zenica and from Kuber 1305 . The Defence added that the crimes were probably committed by the Dzokeri over which it claimed that the accused had no control 1306 . Finally, it asserted that the destruction of Muslim homes could have been collateral damage resulting from the fighting between ABiH and HVO forces which was taking place in Jelinak and in Putis 1307 . As regards the crimes committed at Ocehnici, the Defence recognised that the attack was carried out by the commander of the Military Police Fourth Battalion and his men 1308 . It maintained however that that unit was not under the control of the accused but answered directly to the central office of the Military Police 1309 . Moreover, the Defence asserted that because General Blaskic had not received a report on these events, he could not know of the punishable acts carried out at Ocehnic i 1310 .
b) The individual criminal responsibility of General Blaskic
582. The Trial Chamber will first of all show that at the time of the attacks, General Blaskic was the superior of the troops involved in the crimes. Then it will show from the content of the orders and reports which were submitted at the hearing and especially the general background against which the atrocities were committed that the accused was directly implicated in the offensives in the villages of Loncari and Ocehnici.
583. The soldiers guilty of the crimes committed in April 1993 at Loncari and Ocehnic i belonged to the regular HVO forces 1311 , the Military Police Fourth Battalion, and more specifically the Dzokeri unit 1312 .
584. It was not denied that the regular HVO troops in Busovaca – including the Nikola Subic Brigade which operated in the area – took orders directly from the accused 1313 .
585. The Trial Chamber is convinced, despite the Defence assertions to the contrary, and, as it already found in respect of the crimes committed in the municipality of Vitez, that the Military Police Fourth Battalion and the Dzokeri unit were also under the authority of General Blaskic at the material time.
586. That finding is essentially based on the accused’s testimony. It is further confirmed by the corroborating allegations of several witnesses. During his evidence before the Trial Chamber, the accused himself said that the Military Police was under his command at the time of the criminal events which took place at Loncari and Ocehni ci 1314 . Several witnesses also accepted that the Military Police was subordinate to the command of the accused 1315 .
587. That allegation was corroborated by the fact that during 1993 the accused regularly addressed orders to the Military Police. Those orders took many different forms 1316 and referred both to organisational aspects 1317 and to the conduct of the troops 1318 . Moreover, the accused also gave the Military Police several combat preparation orders 1319 and combat orders 1320 , which is undeniably evidence of the control he exercised over it.
ii) The accused was responsible for the attacks on the villages of Loncari and Ocehnici
588. The Trial Chamber asserted that during the material time, General Blaskic gave numerous orders to the units involved in the crimes, and especially to the Nikola Subic Zrinski Brigade, and deployed them in the area where the crimes were committed 1321 . Moreover, the reports that the accused received from the commanders of that brigade are evidence that he was fully informed of the developments of their mission on the ground 1322 .
589. Admittedly, the Trial Chamber does not stricto sensu have in its possession any order to seize the villages of Loncari and Ocehnici addressed to those units . But then clearly it does not have all the orders issued by the accused during the events, as is obvious from the irregular numbering of the exhibits submitted during the hearing. In that regard, the Trial Chamber noted that it received only ten or so of General Blaskic’s orders covering the period from 17 April at 04:00 hours to 19 April at 18:45 hours 1323 , whereas forty numbers separate the first document from the last 1324 . It also noted that the accused often addressed his troops orally.
590. More fundamentally, the Trial Chamber is convinced beyond all reasonable doubt that it followed from the scale of the atrocities carried out, from the scale of the assets used to achieve them and especially from the fact that the attacks were carried out at the same time and in the same way on the municipalities of Busovaca, Vitez (particularly the villages of Ahmici, Nadioci, Pirici and Santici) and Kiseljak (particularly the villages of Behrici, Gomionica, Gromiljak, Polje Visnjica, Rotilj and Visnjica) that General Blaskic had ordered the offensives against Loncari and Ocehnici.
591. In that connection, the Trial Chamber points out, as it did earlier 1325 , that the crimes committed at Busovaca were similar to those carried out in other municipalities: murders, beatings, unlawful confinements and forced expulsions of Muslim civilians and torching of private homes. It notes, finally, that all these crimes are set against the same background of persecution of Muslim populations in central Bosnia of which they are the most extreme form.
592. The Trial Chamber is also convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that by giving orders to the Military Police in April 1993, when he knew full well that there were criminals in its ranks 1326 , the accused intentionally took the risk that very violent crimes would result from their participation in the offensives. Granted, in November 1992 and March 1993, General Blaskic ordered that the torching of houses stop and had asked commanders, in particular those of regular HVO troops and of the Military Police, to identify the criminals responsible for those acts 1327 . But he almost never punished these criminals and never took steps to put them in a position where they could do no harm by imposing measures that would have prevented the very serious crimes that occurred at Loncari and Ocehnici from being repeated .
D. The municipality of Kiseljak
593. From a general point of view, the Defence did not deny that the HVO committed crimes against the Muslim civilian populations in the region of Kiseljak in April and June 1993 1328 . However it did deny that the accused was responsible for these crimes.
1. The April and June 1993 attacks against the villages in the Kiseljak enclave
594. On 18 April, the villages with a high Muslim population in the north of the region , Behrici, Gomionica, Gromiljak, Hercezi, Polje Visnjica, Visnjica, Rotilij and Svinjarevo were systematically taken by assault by HVO troops. On 12 June, it was the turn of the Muslim villages to the south of the municipality, Grahovci, Han Ploca et Tulica and their inhabitants to suffer the offensives of the Bosnian Croat army.
a) The attacks on the villages in the north of the municipality of Kiseljak
595. Before the April 1993 hostilities, Behrici and Gomionica were essentially Muslim villages. At the 1991 census, Behrici was made up of 153 Muslims and 45 Croats, whereas Gomionica had 417 Muslims and 6 Croats 1329 . Those villages are situated about 6.5 km from the Kiseljak barracks.
596. The attacks on these entities took place in two successive stages: first an artillery offensive then an infantry offensive. From 18 to 21 April 1993, the HVO artillery shelled the two villages with at least 50 shells, including incendiary shells 1330 . Many civilians then took refuge in the Visoko municipality 1331 . As soon as the shelling ended and the soldiers who were attempting to resist these assaults withdrew 1332 , the HVO infantry systematically set fire to and looted houses and stables belonging to Muslims of the lower part of Gomionica 1333 . Many Muslims, including soldiers 1334 , then took refuge for several weeks in the higher part of the village. During June 1993, the HVO artillery and the infantry launched fresh offensives against Gomionica 1335 .
597. All the Muslim inhabitants were finally expelled from these villages. A hundred and thirty-one homes and 98 stables were destroyed 1336 . The two religious sites there were also torched 1337 .
598. Before the April 1993 attack, Gromiljak was a mainly Croatian village. At the 1991 census, it was made up of 425 Croats, 143 Muslims and 16 Yugoslavs 1338 . The village is 5.3 km to the north of the Kiseljak barracks.
599. On 18 April 1993, the HVO infantry entered Gromiljak in order to disarm its Muslim inhabitants 1339 . Then it held part of them in the basement of a private home 1340 . The women and children were released one week later whereas the men of fighting age were held for a fortnight and taken to the front lines and made to dig trenches 1341 . After they were released, the Croatian authorities forced the Muslims to report each day to the local police station and to comply with a curfew imposed upon them from 21:00 hours to 05:00 hours 1342 .
600. The HVO soldiers pillaged 1343 and torched the Muslim homes of the village and drove away their inhabitants. They slightly damaged the mosque by setting fire to it 1344 .
601. Before the April 1993 fighting, Hercezi was a mainly Muslim village. At the 1991 census, 42 Croats and 143 Muslims lived there 1345 .
602. On 18 April 1993, the HVO attacked the area around Hercezi with artillery fire 1346 . The Muslim soldiers who were defending the village then fled into the forest for around two days 1347 . The Croatian military then entered the village and demanded that the Muslims surrender any weapons they possessed, threatening to kill all the inhabitants, including the women, children and the elderly 1348 . After having obeyed that order 1349 , the Muslim residents of the village were put under house arrest for several months and forced by the HVO to report three times a day to a specific location 1350 . As from August, the men of fighting age were taken to the front in order to dig trenches 1351 .
603. In September, all the inhabitants of Hercezi were taken to the Rotilj camp 1352 , then to the Kiseljak barracks where they were driven to the front to dig trenches 1353 .
604. The HVO soldiers pillaged the private homes and seized all the livestock 1354 . Croats moved into the houses originally occupied by Muslims, whom they had forced to leave the village 1355 .
605. Before the April 1993 hostilities, Visnijica was a village with a Muslim majority . At the 1991 census, it had 216 Croats, 714 Muslims and 1 Serb 1356 . The village is situated 5.2 km from the Kiseljak barracks. 444 Croats, 175 Muslims and 3 Serbs lived in Polje Visnijica 1357 .
606. Around 13 April 1993, HVO soldiers dug trenches above Visnjica 1358 . The Croatian inhabitants, warned of an imminent attack, then left the village 1359 .
607. The HVO attacked the villages of Polje Visnijica and Visnijica during the morning of 18 April 1993 1360 . As with the other villages apart from Gromiljak, Visnjica was attacked in two phases: first artillery fire for half a day 1361 , then, once Muslim resistance had been overcome 1362 , the assaults of the infantry soldiers. Soldiers picked out the men of fighting age whom they sent to dig trenches 1363 . They also killed several civilians 1364 and locked some civilians in silos situated at the border of the village. They looted their houses and torched them by dousing them with petrol 1365 .
608. At Visjnica, they burned 40 of the 150 houses belonging to Muslims 1366 . They looted the mosque and expelled the civilians 1367 . At Polje Visnjica, the HVO also burned most of the Muslim houses and forced their inhabitants to flee 1368 .
609. Before the April 1993 attack, Rotilj was a mainly Muslim village. At the 1991 census , it was made up of 440 Muslims, 17 Croats and 1 Yugoslav 1369 . The village is 4.6 km to the west of the Kiseljak barracks.
610. In the night of 17 to 18 April 1993, the HVO forces surrounded Rotilj 1370 . On 18 April, the Commander of the Parizovici HVO, Mato Bojo asked those responsible for the TO to surrender all the weapons in the possession of the Muslim inhabitants of the village 1371 . Despite the fact that the TO leaders agreed to the demand and although very few people had any weapons 1372 , the HVO soldiers attacked the village early in the afternoon of 18 April 1993. The offensive started with artillery fire from the direction of Przevici 1373 . The civilians who had not resisted then took refuge in the basements of their homes 1374 . The attack was carried out by HVO 1375 infantry soldiers who searched the houses looking for weapons 1376 as soon as the shelling stopped and set fire to several of them. They also killed some civilians 1377 .
611. Moreover, the HVO rounded up around 600 Muslims 1378 , mainly women and elderly people 1379 , including some from neighbouring villages 1380 , in the south-east of the village. Those people could not leave 1381 the fifteen to twenty houses abandoned by their owners 1382 , since they were constantly watched over by HVO marksmen 1383 hidden in the hills overlooking the village 1384 . They suffered from overcrowding, from the lack of electricity and especially from the lack of water and food 1385 . Several of them were taken by HVO soldiers to the front lines to dig trenches 1386 .
612. During these assaults, seven Muslim civilians were killed 1387 . Commander Baggesen heard it said that a woman was raped before being killed, that an elderly couple had been burned alive and that a father and his son had been decapitated 1388 . Captain Lanthier, an officer with the Canadian armed forces who served with UNPROFOR from April to November 1993 , also related that several people had been killed violently 1389 . Several dwellings were pillaged 1390 and torched 1391 .
613. Before the April 1993 fighting, Svinjarevo was an almost exclusively Muslim village . At the 1991 census, it was made up of 282 Muslims and one Yugoslav 1392 . The village is 7.3 km north of the Kiseljak barracks.
614. On 18 April 1993, towards 06:00 hours, the HVO launched its attack by firing 1393 60, 80 and 120 millimetre mortars and anti-aircraft weapons 1394 . As soon as the shelling stopped, soldiers from the TO organised the evacuation of about 200 civilians from the village who went in the direction of the municipality of Visoko 1395 . The HVO infantry entered Svinjarevo and the neighbouring villages of Rausevac, Purisevo, Japojrevo and Jehovac. It torched several houses belonging to Muslims 1396 , sometimes using petrol 1397 . The soldiers also took civilians to the Kiseljak barracks where they were imprisoned for several weeks. The attacks carried on until 23 April 1993 1398 .
615. During the offensives, ten Muslim civilians were killed 1399 . Several hundred people fled in the direction of Visoko. Not a single Muslim remained in Svinjarevo after these events 1400 . Ten houses were torched in Purisevo and four houses in Rausevac 1401 .
b) The attacks against the villages in the south of the municipality of Kiseljak
616. Before the June 1993 hostilities, Grahovci was inhabited by 66 Muslims and 2 Croats 1402 . Han Ploca had a population of 259 Muslims and 45 Croats 1403 . Those villages are about ten km to the south of Kiseljak.
617. On 12 June 1993, the HVO ordered the inhabitants of the two villages to surrender their weapons 1404 , which they refused to do 1405 , partly because of the proximity of the Serbian front 1406 . Towards 14:00 hours 1407 , the HVO artillery then shelled Grahovci and Han Ploca 1408 . The shelling was carried out with the assistance of the Bosnian Serb army 1409 . Many Muslim civilians fled, especially into the neighbouring woods 1410 .
618. Once any resistance was overcome, on 13 June towards 18:00 hours 1411 , the HVO infantry 1412 erupted into the villages and systematically looted and torched the houses and stables belonging to Muslims 1413 . It also beat 1414 and violently killed several inhabitants 1415 . The Han Ploca mosque was burned 1416 and its imam killed 1417 . Many civilians , mainly men of fighting age 1418 , were taken prisoner and detained in the Kiseljak barracks 1419 . They were deprived of sufficient food, beaten and made to dig trenches 1420 .
619. All the Muslims left the village during the offensives and about sixty of them have since been declared missing 1421 . Their houses were burned and looted by the HVO soldiers 1422 .
620. Before the June 1993 hostilities, Tulica was a Muslim village. At the 1991 census , it was inhabited by 278 Muslims and one Croat 1423 . It is 12 km to the south of the Kiseljak barracks.
621. On 12 June 1993, Tulica was attacked by HVO soldiers and by the Maturice sabotage unit 1424 . As in April, they acted in two phases. Assisted by the Serbian forces stationed not far from the village 1425 , they started their offensives at about 10:00 hours with artillery fire which went on until about 16:00 hours 1426 . The soldiers then launched an infantry attack. They held the women, children and elderly in a private dwelling. The men of fighting age were taken, then held in the Kiseljak barracks 1427 . Several prisoners were beaten by the barracks guards 1428 and taken to the front to dig trenches 1429 . During the digging work, they were again beaten by HVO soldiers 1430 .
622. The HVO forces deliberately looted and torched most of the Muslim dwellings of the village 1431 . They also killed 12 people including 3 women 1432 and drove all the other Muslim residents away from Tulica 1433 .
623. The offensives of April and June 1993 carried out by the HVO against the municipality of Kiseljak were systematic and massive. Moreover, they were all aimed against the Muslim civilian populations of the region.
i) The systematic and massive nature of the April and June 1993 attacks
624. There is no doubt whatsoever that these offensives were carried out in execution of a plan or an organised action agreed at a high level of the military hierarchy . This is shown by the fact that the following events occurred together:
- the attacks were launched by the HVO simultaneously on 18 April 1993 against all the villages to the north of the Kiseljak enclave and on 13 June against the villages to the south of the enclave 1434 ;
- the telephone lines in Rotilj were cut and that village encircled on the eve of the military operations ;
- the Croatian inhabitants of the village of Visnijca were warned of the offensives and left the area before the start of the hostilities;
- the offensives were carried out each time mainly by the same "Ban Jelacic" Brigade with the help of other units which had been placed under the control of that brigade 1435 ;
- the attacks on the north of the Kiseljak enclave were carried out 48 hours after those carried out, in a similar manner, against the Muslim villages in the municipality of Vitez, in particular Ahmici, Nadioci, Pirici, and Šantici;
- several of these offensives, mainly those which were launched against the villages of Gomionica, Grahovci, Han Ploca and Tulica were carried out in concert with the Bosnian Serbs’ artillery 1436 ;
- roadblocks were put up by the HVO at the entrance to the main roads leading to Gomionica and Polje Visnjica 1437 ;
- finally, and more significantly, the offensives were carried out in the same manner .
On that last point, the Trial Chamber notes that all the attacks, except that on Gromiljak 1438 , occurred in two clear phases: heavy artillery fire intended to defeat any Muslim inhabitants who refused to surrender, followed by infantry offensives.
625. Those soldiers proceeded in the same way each time: they violently killed certain Muslim civilians, confined those they had decided to spare and from among those, picked out the men of fighting age. The men were mainly taken to the Kiseljak barracks , where they were detained for several months and sent to the front in small groups to dig trenches. Other people, mainly women, children and the elderly were driven to the part of the village of Rotilj which was under HVO surveillance. In most of the villages, the infantry systematically looted, damaged or even destroyed the houses, farms and places of worship of the Muslims, usually by torching them.
626. It was also established that the attacks were massive. They affected at least ten Muslim villages in the Kiseljak municipality. During the attacks, around forty civilians were killed and 250 houses torched. Nearly all the Muslim dwellings in the villages of Behrici, Gromiljak, Gomionica and Polje Visnjica were destroyed. The mosques in Behrici, Gomionica, Gromiljak, Visnjica and Han Ploca were also looted, damaged or demolished.
ii) The civilian and Muslim character of the targeted populations
627. There is no doubt whatsoever that the attacks carried out by the HVO in April and June 1993 were not justified by strictly military reasons but also targeted Muslim civilians and their possessions.
628. In April 1993, the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina was mainly occupied in defending the regions of Visoko 1439 , Koscan and Kralupi, which were being subjected to offensives by the Bosnian Serb army 1440 . Furthermore, the villages to the north of the Kiseljak enclave had hardly any military facilities to speak of, nor any trenches 1441 .
629. Furthermore, the assets used by the Muslim soldiers to fight against these attacks were trivial compared to those used by the HVO 1442 . The HVO used heavy artillery and anti-tank artillery 1443 , 60, 80 and 120 mm mortars and hand-held grenade launchers (RPG7) 1444 .
630. Finally, and more fundamentally, it is undeniable that military surveillance had been organised 1445 , particularly at Gomionica 1446 , Hercezi 1447 , Svinjarevo 1448 and Visnjica 1449 , and that the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina was present at the time of the offensives carried out in the villages of Svinjarevo and especially Grahovci and Han Ploca 1450 . Those two villages were very close to the Serbian front lines 1451 and to the territories under the control of the ABiH 1452 . It follows however from the nature and the scale of the crimes perpetrated that the HVO soldiers were not fighting only in order to overcome that armed resistance . They were also seeking to make the Muslim civilian populations flee the municipality and to ensure that they did not return 1453 . In order to achieve this the HVO soldiers mainly acted as follows:
- they terrorised the civilians by intensive shelling, murders and sheer violence;
- they systematically torched and destroyed their private homes and places of worship 1454 , usually after looting them ;
- they slaughtered the livestock and seized agricultural reserves;
- and finally, they arrested and detained in camps, then finally exchanged or expelled Muslim civilians towards territories under the control of the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina .
631. In that connection, the Trial Chamber notes that the Kiseljak authorities created an official commission responsible for driving civilians out of the region 1455 . Finally, it points out that the municipality in which 10,000 Muslims lived before the hostilities had only 800 remaining after 1456 .
632. All these facts emerge clearly from the consistent findings of many witnesses , including several ECMM officers. According to the report of Major Lars Baggesen , the village of Gomionica was totally destroyed and all its inhabitants had gone 1457 . The report mentioned in relation to Polje Visnjica that "most of the Muslim houses had been burned and most of the Muslims had left the village" 1458 . Captain Lanthier expressed his "horror in the face of the savagery of the acts" 1459 . He added that "the very nature of these acts was just horrifying" 1460 . Captain Liebert, a Canadian army officer, also noted the "surgical" nature of the damage inflicted on Rotilj and after his visit to the village declared:
The impression it left with me is very vivid and very striking, because I was taken aback by the surgical nature of the damage, and I use that term because, as you drove through this area, there would be houses that were burnt out. There would be one or two or three, and right in the middle of them you would see another house that was still intact, and indeed, inhabited. And then a little further down the road, there would be more destroyed houses. There was no pattern to this or no immediate pattern and upon talking to the inhabitants, it quickly became clear that the damaged houses were basically the property of Bosnian Muslim civilians, and, in a lot of cases, the undamaged ones were the property of Bosnian Croats 1461
He added:
I think it was very discriminating, sir, and I believe the damage for the most part was relegated to Bosnian Muslim houses 1462 .
According to the account given by Lieutenant-Colonel Remy Landry:
Once we arrived, we saw that there had absolutely been some atrocities which had been committed. Specific houses had been burned, burnt houses between houses which had not at all been set on fire. […] It was clear that the Muslim houses had been burned; that at least one women who was not able to escape on time had been raped and then killed with machine-gun bursts […] We went to visit a house, if you can call it a house, where the people had been burned 1463 .
633. Deborah Christie, a BBC journalist, testified to the discriminatory nature of the destruction at Visnjica: "there would be a Croat house, then a Muslim house, then a Croat house and the Muslim one in the middle would be destroyed, severely damaged and on several occasions burned out" 1464 . She also said: "it was clear from the state of the houses, which we knew quite well by then, that the people had had to leave in a terrible hurry, that they had taken absolutely nothing" 1465 .
634. In conclusion, and as was pointed out by Captain Lanthier, who was able to visit many of the villages in the Kiseljak enclave after the hostilities:
What had happened in the Kiseljak pocket is what is known as ethnic cleansing , where deliberately the citizens had been attacked, that is, those citizens of Muslim origin and only them. The others had been left untouched. It wasn’t specifically the villages that were attacked but specifically people within the villages. That was what allowed me – that is the conclusion I came to 1466 . […] In my mind, it was clear, and even more so in retrospect, that the operations that were carried out in the Vitez and Kiseljak pockets constituted ethnic cleansing of the Muslim population living there. They were carried out in the military fashion. The tactics utilised and the use of the land and all the other factors, which I have already mentioned, indicates quite clearly that Sthe situation was notC that one day to the next, a farmer decides to exterminate his neighbours, but rather a systematic extermination […] When you look at what happened in Vitez two days later, this thing continued in the Kiseljak pocket, and then several days later , in Breza, in this 302nd Brigade, I was told that the same thing was being prepared for Vares and Stupni Do. And I was told by this brigade that he feared for Stupni Do. History showed later on that the exact same thing was to happen there. So it was systematic, it was organised, and there was no doubt whatsoever that this was a military operation against a civilian population 1467.
He also stated: "except for [in one] house, […] around Gromiljak, I didn’t see any presence of human beings in those villages" 1468 . Major Baggesen also acknowledged that "it was obvious that ethnic cleansing had taken place in the area" 1469 .
2. The responsibility of General Blaskic
635. To begin, the Trial Chamber will very succinctly recall the main arguments advanced by the Prosecution and the Defence. It will then analyse General Blaskic’s individual criminal responsibility for the crimes described above.
636. The Prosecutor asserted that General Blaskic ordered HVO units, and more specifically the Ban Jelacic Brigade, to attack the villages in the north and south of the Kiseljak enclave on 18 April and 12 June 1993 1470 . She also maintained that by issuing such orders the accused must have known that violations of humanitarian law would very probably result 1471 . In support of these assertions, she presented inter alia two combat orders dated 17 April 1993 in which the accused instructed the commander of the Ban Jela cic Brigade to seize the villages of Gomionica and Svinjarevo 1472 . Moreover, from the scope of the military operations conducted in April and June 1993 and the manner in which they were carried out, she surmised that they were planned by General Blaskic at a very high level in the command structure 1473 . The Prosecutor stated lastly that even though the HVO headquarters were geographically isolated from the Kiseljak region, the accused was closely connected to the military units deployed there as the combat reports which he received during the events showed 1474 . In view of this, she also noted that General Blaskic travelled to the Kiseljak 1475 enclave on several occasions and that he had available to him advanced communications 1476 .
637. However, the Defence alleged that the accused did not know of the crimes perpetrated during the unlawful attacks upon the villages 1477 . It asserted firstly that since the army of Bosnia-Herzegovina controlled the road linking the Busovaca and Kiseljak entities as of January 1993, General Blaskic could only rarely travel to the enclave 1478 . The Defence further declared that he could only get there with UNPROFOR’s assistance 1479 . It finally maintained that the telephone communications between the accused’s headquarters and Kiseljak headquarters were regularly cut and intercepted by the ABiH 1480 and that the packet transmission system was neither effective nor rapid 1481 .
638. In addition, the Defence contended that on 17 April 1993 the accused ordered the Ban Jelacic Brigade to seize the positions held by the ABiH in Gomionica and Svinjarevo so as to prevent that army from coming to the aid of the Muslim forces attacking the HVO in the Busovaca and Vitez regions 1482 . Moreover, following the combat operations conducted by the ABiH in the Kiseljak region after 17 April, the accused issued a new order dated 19 April directing the Ban Jelacic Brigade to take control of the Gomionica heights 1483 . According to the Defence, his objective was strictly military 1484 . Furthermore, in light of the reports which he received as to the progress of the fighting on the ground, he had no "reason to know, however, that his orders were being destroyed and that civilians and civilian property were being deliberately attacked" 1485 .
639. Lastly, the Defence supported that the Mostar HVO General Staff had a forward command post in the Kiseljak region 1486 and directly controlled the "operative group" in this zone 1487 . It asserted too that the return of Ivica Rajic in May 1993 as "HVO Operative Group Commander in Kiseljak" 1488 made the exercise of his functions especially difficult and uncertain 1489 . The Defence claimed that commander Rajic received orders directly from General Petkovi c, his personal friend 1490 , and was highly regarded by the soldiers in the Kiseljak HVO, unlike General Blaskic 1491 .
640. Initially, the Trial Chamber will analyse the content of the military orders sent by the accused to the commander of the Ban Jelacic Brigade. It will then infer from the systematic and widespread nature of the crimes perpetrated and the general context within which they occurred that the military operations conducted in April and June 1993 in the Kiseljak enclave were ordered by General Blaskic himself.
641. The Trial Chamber will first look at the contents of the combat preparation order 1492 and the combat order 1493 of 17 April 1993. It will next determine to whom the orders were sent and the military assets ordered to be used.
a. The texts of the combat preparation order and combat order
642. In orders issued at 09:10 hours and 23:45 hours on 17 April 1993, General Bla skic instructed the Kiseljak Ban Jelacic Brigade to seize several Muslim villages in the municipality.
643. The first, a combat preparation order, was addressed to the commander of the brigade instructing him to prepare his troops inter alia to "engage in the blockade of Visnjica and other villages that can be used by the enemy to launch an attack" 1494 , to "take control of Gomionica and Svinjarevo " 1495 and to inform the accused as soon as he was ready to launch the offensives 1496 . The second order directed the "Ban Jelacic Brigade Command Kiseljak" to launch those military operations at 05:30 hours on 18 April 1993 and to "capture Gomionica and Svinjarevo" 1497 .
644. The Trial Chamber observes that in these orders General Blaskic used terms which were not strictly military and had emotional connotations which were such as to incite hatred and vengeance against the Muslim populations. The opening paragraph of the combat order began with the following assertion:
[the] enemy continues to massacre Croats in Zenica where Muslim forces are using tanks to fire at people, mostly women and children 1498
Using the same terms, the fourth paragraph added:
Persist tomorrow with the attack or we will be wiped out because the MOS /Muslim armed forces/ and the Mujahedin are advancing against the Croats in Zenica supported by tanks1499
The ninth paragraph included an emphatic call to the responsibility of the commander who received the order to "maintain a sense of historic responsibility" 1500 .
645. The same terms were again to be found in the combat preparation order of 17 April 1993, in particular in the opening paragraph:
[t]he enemy is continuing the intense attacks against the forces of HVO and is trying to completely eradicate the Croats from the region and destroy all the institutions of HVO in the valley of the Lasva. The probable goal of the aggressor, after the accord with the chetniks about the surrender of Srebrenica and other regions, is the military defeat of HVO and the inclusion of our regions into some kind of a greater Serbia or New Yugoslavia.
In the combats that raged yesterday, the enemy used the favourite method of the chetniks: pushing women and children in front, to use them as a shield and then to occupy the main strategic objects 1501 .
The order’s ninth paragraph also emphatically conferred an historic role upon the Kiseljak HVO commander and his troops:
[k]eep in mind that the lives of the Croats in the region of Lasva depend upon your mission. This region could become a tomb for all of us if you show a lack of resolution 1502 .
646. Based only on the text, the Trial Chamber notes that the accused used particularly clear terms in entrusting the commander of the Ban Jelacic Brigade with an attack mission. He gave the order to "engage in the blockade of Visnjica and other villages " 1503 and to "take control of" 1504 or "capture" 1505 Gomionica and Svinjarevo . Despite the contention of the Defence, the terms used do not suggest that General Blaskic ordered the commander to capture only the ABiH positions allegedly located in the towns. On the contrary, the eighth paragraph implied that his task went well beyond that. The accused employed radical words in the order which have connotations of "eradication": "All assault operations must be successful and to that end, use units of the Military Police and civilian police for the mop-up" 1506 .
647. On 17 April 1993, the accused sent the combat preparation order and combat order to Mijo Bozic whom he had previously appointed to the post of Ban Jelacic Brigade commander 1507 . Furthermore, at 16:45 hours on 18 April 1993, Mijo Bozic reported to the accused informing him, amongst other things, that the conflict had spread to Rotilj, Visnjica, Doci, Hercezi and Bretovsko 1508 .
648. It was Mijo Bozic himself who issued a criminal order on 27 January 1993 1509 which read: "After the preparation has been completed the local population is to be called to surrender unconditionally all weapons; otherwise the villages will be burnt to the ground. In case of refusal to surrender arms open strong and concentrated fire on all targets with PAT /anti-aircraft guns/, PAM /anti-aircraft machine guns/, and MB /mortars/ and proceed with mopping up the area" 1510 . It also stated that "Bukovci village must be taken by nightfall on condition that we burn anything standing in our way" 1511 .
649. Despite the fact that Mijo Bozic never carried out this January order, by turning to him in April 1993 to direct military operations designed to "seal off", attack and "cleanse" villages inhabited to a very large extent by civilians, General Bla skic ordered or at least provoked the commission of crimes against Muslims and their property, including the razing of their houses.
650. In the second paragraph of the combat order, the accused instructed that "all available artillery" be used and that Gomionica and Svinjarevo be captured "through systematic targeting (60, 82 and 120 mm MB /mortar launchers/)" 1512 . In paragraph 6 of the same order, he also ordered that "fire preparations for the attack must be strong and guarantee a successful attack" 1513 .
651. By advocating the vigorous use of heavy weapons to seize villages inhabited mainly by civilians, General Blaskic gave orders which had consequences out of all proportion to military necessity and knew that many civilians would inevitably be killed and their homes destroyed.
652. Before reaching any conclusions, the Trial Chamber recalls that the attack of April on the villages, especially Svinjarevo, Gomionica and Visnjica, proceeded according to the combat order signed by the accused 1514 – heavy artillery fire followed up by infantry sent in to "mop up".
653. The Trial Chamber maintains that even though General Blaskic did not explicitly order the expulsion and killing of the civilian Muslim populations, he deliberately ran the risk of making them and their property the primary targets of the "sealing off" and offensives launched on 18 April 1993. It draws this assertion from the following in particular:
- the categorical and hate engendering content of the combat preparation order and combat order;
- the fact that the orders were addressed to a commander who had himself previously threatened to burn a village down;
- and finally, the fact that they advocated the use of heavy weapons against villages inhabited for the most part by civilians.
ii) The widespread and systematic nature of the crimes perpetrated
654. The Trial Chamber points out that the two aforesaid orders did not initiate all the military operations conducted in Kiseljak in April and June 1993.
655. To start, the Trial Chamber indicates that other orders were sent by the accused to the Ban Jelacic Brigade at the same period, in particular at 18:45 hours 1515 and at 21:40 hours 1516 on 19 April . The former explained inter alia that it was necessary to "attack in groups and only diagonally from Kocatale and Sikulja" 1517 . The latter recalled that Gomionica had to be taken "tonight or in the early morning , because the main forces of the MOS /Muslim armed forces/ are at Busovaca […]" 1518 .
656. The Trial Chamber also sets forth that General Blaskic often spoke to his troops . It asserts that even though it was difficult to reach Kiseljak due to the war- time circumstances the HVO army had taken hold of the town’s communications buildings and had sufficiently advanced technical means in order to communicate with the officers in the field on a regular basis 1519 . In this connection, the Trial Chamber points out that the combat preparation order demanded a report from the commander of the Ban Jelacic Brigade before 23:30 hours confirming that he was ready to conduct operations. At 23:45 hours, the accused sent out the attack order. It is thereby proved that, contrary to the claims of the accused, the communications between Vitez and Kiseljak were indeed working.
657. Further, as it has affirmed previously, the Trial Chamber is convinced that it does not have all the orders issued by the accused during the period covered by the charges. This is borne out by the irregular numbering of the documents provided to the Trial Chamber by the parties to the hearings.
658. Moreover, the reports which the accused received during the events 1520 and the orders which he issued during 1993, especially those appointing 1521 and dismissing 1522 commanders, persuaded the Trial Chamber that General Blaskic did indeed command military operations in the Kiseljak region and effectively controlled how they developed. In addition, he claimed in a interview for the newspaper Danas in October 1993:
[the separated municipalities] are carrying out, in a co-ordinated and organised manner, all commands connected with the defence of the people and Croatian territories . This physical separation is not an essential or decisive factor, because we figured in our planning that the temporary physical separation of these areas could occur . Travnik is the first operative group, Kiseljak the second, Zepce the third, and Sarajevo the fourth. All operative groups are under my command, and the chain of leadership and command functions absolutely. Without interruption. 1523
659. More fundamentally and in addition to these important elements, the Trial Chamber holds that the indubitable conclusion to be drawn from the manner in which the offensives progressed and the systematic and widespread nature of the crimes perpetrated is that the military operations of April and June 1993 were ordered at the highest level of the HVO military command by the Central Bosnia Operative Zone commander - General Blaskic. In this regard, the Trial Chamber will recall three striking points already brought out:
- the offensives conducted in April in the municipality of Vitez and to the north of Kiseljak and in June to the south of Kiseljak all evolved along similar lines ;
- the attacks on Kiseljak were on each occasion led mostly by HVO troops, and more precisely by the Ban Jelacic Brigade whose commander received orders directly from the accused.
- and finally, the offensives all produced the same result: the systematic expulsion of Muslim civilian inhabitants from their villages and, in most cases, the destruction of their dwellings and the plunder of their property.
iii) The general context of persecution of the Muslim populations
660. The Trial Chamber observes that the HVO military offensives were merely the ultimate outcome of an overall policy of persecution of the Muslim populations pursued by the Croatian military and political authorities. In agreeing to be the Kiseljak region military commander in April 1992 and then Central Bosnia Operative Zone commander in June of that same year, the accused fully subscribed to this policy from the very moment of his posting.
661. The Trial Chamber is of the view that the content of the military orders sent to the Ban Jelacic Brigade commander, the systematic and widespread aspect of the crimes perpetrated and the general context in which these acts fit permit the assertion that the accused ordered the attacks effected in April and June 1993 against the Muslim villages in the Kiseljak region. It also appears that General Blaskic clearly had to have known that by ordering the Ban Jelacic Brigade to launch such wide-ranging attacks against essentially civilian targets extremely violent crimes would necessarily result. Lastly, it emerges from those same facts that the accused did not pursue a purely military objective but that by using military assets he also sought to implement the policy of persecution of the Muslim civilian populations set by the highest HVO authorities and that, through these offensives, he intended to make the populations in the Kiseljak municipality take flight.
662. Towards midday on 19 April 1993, Zenica town centre was targeted by several artillery shells. The testimony and exhibits admitted by the Trial Chamber indicate that the shells hit very busy parts of town, such as the shopping district and the municipal market 1524 - moreover, at a peak time. In fact, it seems that at this exact time of day, commercial traffic was considerable and there were between two to three thousand people in the geographical area bombarded 1525 .
663. The Prosecution contended that many civilians died or were severely wounded by the shelling. The exhibits and testimony confirmed the allegation which the Defence , moreover, did not dispute 1526 . That the persons killed or wounded were civilians is also beyond doubt.
664. Likewise, the Defence did not contest that much civilian property was destroyed . In view of the exhibits, the civilian nature of the material damage inflicted by the shelling is unquestionable 1527 . In addition, witnesses attested to the fact that there were no military facilities near the impact points of the shelling - nor even facilities of a military nature 1528 .
665. The precise number of shells fired into Zenica town centre remains unknown but was not argued over by the parties. The Prosecution put the figure at nine shells 1529 whilst the Defence mentioned several shells 1530 without providing any further details.
666. The main difficulty which the Trial Chamber had to resolve centred on how to establish which troops were involved in the shelling. On this point, it became apparent that the arguments of the parties differed greatly and that identification of the perpetrators and those responsible for the bombardment was less important than a study of the case-file conducted in as much detail as possible and, in particular , of the information available on the artillery pieces probably used and their technical characteristics.
667. The Trial Chamber first need an exact understanding of the arguments and method used by each of the two parties.
668. The Prosecution maintained that the shells were fired from a 122 mm howitzer belonging to the HVO troops positioned in Puticevo 16 km west of Zenica 1531 . This assertion was based on the analysis of the depositions given by witnesses Baggesen , Veseljak and W. The Prosecution argument, supported by the testimony of the three said persons, was presented in two main sections which formed the bases for the calculation method used by the Prosecutor.
669. The first section consisted of determining the calibre of the shell by analysing the depth and size of the crater formed by the artillery piece and how the shell fragmented within the craters. Relying on examination of the craters at the sites shelled, witnesses Baggesen and W reached the conclusion that the shell’s calibre was 122 mm 1532 . Determining the shell’s calibre allowed its azimuth and range to be subsequently established.
670. The second section consisted of establishing from which direction the shell was fired. The direction can be ascertained from the position of the crater and examination of the marks left by the shell’s explosion, bearing in mind that the trajectory followed by the shell is inversely related to the direction of the shell impact marks. In the present case, the three witnesses considered that the shells originated from the west of Zenica, in particular from the HVO positions to the west of the town 1533 .
671. According to the Prosecution, the conclusion reached as to the calibre and trajectory of the shells was a decisive argument which demonstrated that the HVO troops were behind the Zenica shelling. The Prosecutor further deemed that additional evidence corroborated the conclusion. She claimed that the contemporary military context strongly suggested that the shelling of Zenica was an intentional riposte by the HVO to the ABiH counter-offensive 1534 . Moreover, she asserted that the VRS artillery could not have been responsible for the shelling in light of the type of shell employed and the geographical location of the troops when the shelling occurred 1535 .
672. The Defence contended that the shelling could not be ascribed to HVO troops . It claimed that even if it was "not possible to identify with precision the origin of those shells" 1536 everything went to prove that, on the contrary, it was the Bosnian Serb army which was behind the attack on Zenica. In order to demonstrate that the HVO was not responsible, the Defence put forth several arguments relating both to the military context and to the analysis of the calibration of the shells used.
673. Firstly, the VRS allegedly shelled Zenica on a regular basis from April to July 1993 and the marketplace was within firing range of the Serbian artillery positioned around Vlasic 1537 .
674. In addition, a telephone call between Lieutenant-Colonel Stewart and Tihomir Bla skic shows that the calibre of the shell which hit the marketplace was not 122 mm but 155 mm 1538 . It was, moreover , only during his trial that Tihomir Blaskic supposedly learnt of the theory that a 122 mm howitzer had been used 1539 . The Defence maintained that the HVO troops were not equipped with this type of artillery piece at the time of the acts since they had been moved from Travnik to Mostar on 8 January 1993 1540 .
675. Lastly, the Defence further submitted that Professor Jankovic’s testimony refuted the arguments advanced by the Prosecution witnesses. Based on mathematical calculations made according to standardised models and using the hypothetical calculations put forward by the Prosecution, the witness considered that the two types of Russian and Yugoslav 122 mm howitzer likely to have been used in the acts could not have reached the centre of Zenica from the HVO positions west of the town because of their insufficient range 1541 . In addition, Professor Jankovic thought that the method of examining the shell crater employed by the Prosecution witnesses to determine the range, angle of descent and direction of the projectile fired was incorrect 1542 .
676. Analysis of the respective arguments propounded by the Prosecution and Defence allowed the Trial Chamber to focus in on the nature and specificity of the two arguments . It actually appeared that the calculation method employed by the Prosecution was pragmatic and deductive in that it opted for reasoning based on observation. It thus differed from that of the Defence which was based on the data presented by the Prosecution and was more abstract and mathematical insofar as it relied on rules and official standards.
677. Admittedly, the arguments put forward by the Defence were not such as to invalidate wholly the Prosecution argument. The Trial Chamber had to note in particular the coincidence of the attacks of the Croatian forces of 16-18 April 1993, the necessary reaction of the Muslim forces in the face of such attacks and the circumstance by which Zenica was both the town with the largest Muslim population near to Vitez and the headquarters of the ABiH 3rd Corps 1543 . Notwithstanding this, in the eyes of the Trial Chamber, the Prosecutor’s demonstration was not sufficiently convincing and the Defence produced evidence such as to cast reasonable doubt onto whether the shelling at issue could be imputed to the HVO. The Prosecution’s demonstration relative to the calibre and trajectory of the shells used to shell Zenica town seemed insufficient when compared to that of the Defence . The sketches submitted by the Prosecution in support of its demonstration suffered from vagueness 1544 whilst those produced by the Defence witness were unquestionably scientific 1545 . Professor Jankovic, whom the Trial Chamber further asked for additional information pursuant to Rule 98 of the Rules 1546 with the consent of the Prosecution, offered comparative mathematical calculations liable to contradict those presented by the Prosecution. Even though the Prosecution attempted to prove in other ways that the shell used was 122 mm, it did not sufficiently demonstrate that the HVO artillery positions, as located to the west of the city by the Prosecution, could reach Zenica town with this type of shell as occurred on 19 April 1993. Moreover, despite the fact that, in the eyes of the Trial Chamber , the argument that the howitzer was moved several kilometres by the HVO is plausible , the Prosecution was not able to prove that such was the case.
678. Consequently, the issue of the identity of the troops involved in the shelling of Zenica could not be resolved by the Trial Chamber because the Prosecutor did not demonstrate beyond all reasonable doubt that the HVO troops or other elements under the command of the accused were behind the shelling. The Trial Chamber is therefore of the view that there is reason to declare General Blaskic not guilty of the counts brought against him based on the shelling of Zenica town on 19 April 1993.
679. Counts 15 to 20 were grouped together because they all deal with the deprivation of freedom suffered by many Muslims and the crimes committed against them at the time.
1. Inhuman and cruel treatment
680. The indictment alleges that from January 1993 to January 1994, Bosnian Muslims were detained by the HVO in Vitez cinema hall, Kaonik prison near Busovaca, Vitez veterinary station, Dubravica primary school, the SDK offices in Vitez, Kiseljak barracks, Rotilj village and the houses of Gacice 1547 .
681. The detainees were allegedly used as human shields, beaten, forced to dig trenches and subjected to physical and mental violence, threats and inhuman treatment, in particular by being confined in cramped or overcrowded facilities and being deprived of sufficient food and water. Some of them were reportedly killed or wounded while being forced to dig trenches in the Kiseljak, Vitez and Busovaca municipalities 1548 .
682. Accordingly, the accused allegedly committed a grave breach covered by Article 2 (b) of the Tribunal’s Statute (inhuman treatment - count 15) and a violation of the laws or customs of war covered by Article 3 of the Statute and recognised by Article 3(1)(a) of the Geneva Conventions (cruel treatment - count 16) 1549 .
683. The Prosecution submitted that the acts or omissions constituting inhuman or cruel treatment committed by General Blaskic or his subordinates caused great physical or mental suffering or serious physical and mental injury to the Bosnian Muslim detainees and attacked their human dignity. The acts on which the counts rely cover most of the physical or mental violence, especially the verbal abuse, beatings, theft of the detainees’ personal effects, forced labour, digging of trenches and rape. The criminal omissions purportedly concerned the failure of the HVO to meet their obligations to treat the Bosnian Muslim detainees with humanity and to guarantee them acceptable living conditions 1550 .
684. The Defence held that the Bosnian Muslims’ freedom of movement in the village of Rotilj was not limited and that they could not consequently have been detained. It argued that a roadblock was erected by the HVO at the village’s checkpoint in order to protect the Muslim inhabitants from any danger. This checkpoint did not supposedly prevent the Muslim inhabitants from leaving Rotilj because the main road was not the only route out of the village 1551 .
685. The Defence further deemed that Tihomir Blaskic was not guilty of the charges by which the Bosnian Muslim detainees were deprived of sufficient food and water and confined in cramped facilities. It contended that both the supply of food and water and the facilities were adequate at the detention sites at Vitez cinema, Kaonik prison, Vitez veterinary hospital, Kiseljak barracks, Rotilj village and the houses in Gacice. Likewise, the persons assigned to the work teams were neither short of food or water nor confined in cramped facilities. In any case, the Defence maintained that the Prosecution had not managed to demonstrate that the detainees were in a worse situation that the Croats detained by the ABiH 1552 .
686. Finally, the Defence contended that the work conditions of the teams were not generally dangerous, improper or discriminatory and thereby did not constitute a breach of the Geneva Conventions. Moreover, the teams were formed in accordance with the law of the HZHB and the Republic of BH and the accused was convinced that they were lawful. In the opinion of the Defence, even if the use of work teams constituted a breach of the Conventions, General Blaskic’s mistake as regards the law should exonerate him of all responsibility in this respect. In conclusion, the Defence claimed that the Prosecution did not charge the accused with the use of work teams in dangerous conditions and that, accordingly, such an indictment could not incur his responsibility 1553 .
687. The Trial Chamber will review the crimes alleged by municipality.
688. During the first half of 1993, male Muslim civilians, particularly from Busovaca municipality 1554 , were imprisoned by the HVO at Kaonik prison 1555 , a former JNA warehouse a little over 10 kilometres from the Hotel Vitez 1556 . The prison was made up of approximately twenty rooms, about 9 square metres, transformed for the purpose into cells to hold Muslims 1557 . With perhaps as many as 400 persons detained by the HVO, as for example after the January 1993 campaign, the prison was overcrowded 1558 . The hygiene and comfort conditions as well as the quality and quantity of food were poor 1559 . Personal valuables were confiscated there 1560 . Further, exaction was sadistically meted out upon detainees 1561 by HVO soldiers. For example, detainees were forced to beat one another 1562 .
689. Detainees at Kaonik prison were also compelled to dig trenches under guard of HVO soldiers. They were led in groups to different sites 1563 . The detainees taken off to the front were in danger – some were killed by gunfire 1564 . Work was strenuous and long , food insufficient 1565 . In addition , detainees were abused by their guards. For instance, some were refused permission to take cover while fire was being exchanged, some were beaten 1566 and others underwent mock executions 1567 .
690. On 23 April 1992, the HVO took over a former JNA barracks in Kiseljak where Tihomir Blaskic set up one of his headquarters 1568 . As of April 1993 until approximately November 1993 1569 , the barracks were also used as a detention centre to hold many male Muslim civilians captured by the HVO in the villages of Kiseljak municipality 1570 . At one time, there were also women and children interned at the prison 1571 . The detainees endured difficult living conditions. In particular, hygiene and food were poor 1572 . Furthermore, HVO soldiers and military policemen were responsible for many beatings and for brutal physical and mental violence inflicted on detainees. Thus, for instance, in pitch darkness detainees received engine oil with which to "wash" 1573 .
691. In addition, from April 1993 until January 1994 1574 , Muslims from Kiseljak municipality were held captive in the village of Rotilj . The Trial Chamber recalls that the detainees were prevented from leaving the village, especially because they were being watched by snipers positioned in the hills around the village. The Muslims were therefore kept in an HVO detention camp .
692. The prisoners of Rotilj were forced to endure particularly harsh living conditions . The village was overcrowded and the people crammed into those houses which had not been destroyed. They lacked medicines and there was insufficient water and food . The Trial Chamber points to the murders and acts of physical violence, including rape, which occurred in the village.
693. Furthermore, the men detained in Kiseljak barracks and Rotilj were compelled by the HVO to dig trenches 1575 . In so doing, some detainees near the front-line were killed or wounded during exchanges of fire 1576 . Forced labour sometimes lasted a long time and the detainees were exposed to bad weather 1577 . In addition, they were mistreated by the Military Police 1578 who, for example, sometimes inflicted sadistic bodily harm on them. Thus, one witness related how they placed a cigarette up his nostril while threatening to kill him 1579 . The guards prohibited the detainees from taking cover whilst fire was being exchanged 1580 .
694. On 16 April 1993, HVO soldiers detained a large number of male Muslim civilians in Vitez veterinary station 1581 . The station was inside a municipal building located approximately 900 metres from the Hotel Vitez 1582 . Seventy-six detainees were locked in the basement and in rooms at the top of the building 1583 . In the basement there was so little room that the detainees could only crouch. The air inside was humid and suffocating. The elderly were finally transferred to the veterinary station’s examination room 1584 . On the fourth day of detention 1585 , the detainees were taken off to other detention centres such as Dubravica school 1586 .
695. Located in a municipal building near to Vitez railway station and just over two and a half kilometres from the Hotel Vitez 1587 , Dubravica primary school was the billet for the Vitezovi unit and the Ludwig Pavlovic Brigade 1588 . During the second half of April 1993, the school also served as an HVO detention centre. Two hundred Muslim men, women and children from the villages of Vitez municipality were detained there 1589 . They suffered from a lack of food and comfort 1590 . Furthermore, the women and children were terrorised and threatened by their guards 1591 . Women were raped by HVO soldiers and members of the Military Police 1592 .
696. Vitez cultural centre was in a municipal building barely a hundred metres from Blaskic’s headquarters at the Hotel Vitez 1593 . The building was originally used as a head office by the political parties in Vitez . Mario Cerkez, commander of the HVO Vitez Brigade, had established his headquarters there 1594 . Beginning on 16 April 1993, between 300 to 500 Muslim civilians were detained under guard of the Military Police and HVO soldiers 1595 . In the cellar, a large number of detainees, including some ill pensioners, had to sit or stand on the coal stored there 1596 . Since the number of detainees grew rapidly, they were transferred to other rooms in the building, such as the cinema hall, which also became overcrowded 1597 . Towards the end of the month some of the pensioners and ill were released 1598 but other detainees, particularly ABiH or SDA members and intellectuals 1599 , were transferred to other detention centres, such as Kaonik prison 1600 .
697. The village of Gacice lies in the municipality of Vitez approximately two kilometres from the town of Vitez 1601 . After the attack on the village on 20 April 1993, a group of 180 women, children , elderly men and Muslim civilians were assembled in a few of the remaining houses 1602 under the control of the HVO soldiers 1603 . The living conditions were particularly harsh 1604 . After approximately two weeks, the HVO took them off to territory controlled by Muslim forces 1605 .
698. In mid April 1993, 63 men mostly of fighting age were detained by the HVO for several days in the SDK building in Vitez. Guarded by the Military Police , the detainees were confined in three overcrowded and cold facilities 1606 .
699. A significant number of the detainees at the cultural centre, the veterinary station, Dubravica school and the SDK building were forced to dig trenches by HVO soldiers 1607 . It was strenuous and dangerous work. At the front-line, some were killed or wounded 1608 , especially when the HVO did not allow them to lie down to protect themselves from shooting 1609 . During one incident in particular, HVO soldiers killed one detainee and threatened to kill another 1610 .
700. In conclusion, the Trial Chamber adjudges that in the case in point the material element and mens rea of the crimes of inhuman treatment (count 15) and cruel treatment (count 16) as defined above have been satisfied. The Trial Chamber takes note of the following acts and omissions:
- inflicting physical and mental violence upon the detainees, at the various aforesaid detention sites and whilst they were forced to dig trenches;
- placing the detainees in a life-threatening situation by taking them to the front or nearby;
- the atmosphere of terror reigning in the detention facilities;
- the cases of long-term detention 1611 , in several camps under difficult circumstances 1612 .
Moreover, the Trial Chamber adds that the cruel or inhuman treatment was inflicted by HVO soldiers and the Military Police and that the victims were Bosnian Muslims . For the most part they were civilians - the remainder being hors de combat - and therefore were protected persons for the reasons explained earlier.
701. The indictment states that from January 1993 to January 1994 Bosnian Muslim civilians were taken hostage by the HVO and used both in prisoner exchanges and in order to bring to a halt Bosnian military operations against the HVO 1613 . The accused thus allegedly committed a grave breach covered by Article 2(h) of the Tribunal’s Statute (taking civilians as hostages - count 17) and a violation of the laws or customs of war covered by Article 3 of the Statute and recognised by Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions (taking of hostages - count 18).
702. The Prosecution explained that counts 17 and 18 were based on the HVO’s taking of Bosnian Muslim detainees incarcerated inter alia at the cinema, the veterinary station, Dubravica school and Kaonik prison as hostages on 19 and 20 April 1993.
703. The Prosecution contended that the large number of detainees (2,223) to whom death threats were allegedly made on 19 and 20 April led to the unavoidable conclusion that all the Bosnian Muslim detainees in the hands of the Croatian forces in the region at all the detention facilities must be considered as HVO hostages. To begin with, very many civilians were at the detention facilities. In any case, and for the purposes of Article 3 of the Statute, the Prosecution asserted that the victims had not taken an active part in the hostilities. The HVO next clearly sought to use all means available to it to compel the ABiH to end its counter-attack. Lastly , the Prosecution alleged that a death threat hung over the lives of the hostages 1614 .
704. In the opinion of the Defence, even though General Blaskic exercised command responsibility within the CBOZ, the detention of Bosnian Muslim civilians was justified on security and safety grounds. A lawful act of this type could not therefore be characterised as taking of hostages. Moreover, the Defence asserted that it had not been established that the persons who participated in the alleged hostage-taking had had the specific intention to profit therefrom 1615 .
705. In order to reconstruct the incidents of 19 and 20 April 1993, the Trial Chamber will rely inter alia on the testimony of Dr. Muhamed Mujezinovic, a Bosnian Muslim and member of the Vitez War Presidency at the time 1616 .
706. On 19 April 1993, Dr. Mujezinovic was taken off by two HVO soldiers to Vitez cultural centre. In an office were Mario Cerkez and five other persons all wearing HVO uniforms. Mario Cerkez said that the ABiH troops were advancing into town and that the witness had to obey his orders. He told the witness:
that [he] had to call the command of the Third Corps, to call Alija Izetbegovic, Haris Silajdzic, Ejub Ganic and whoever [he] knew, and to tell them that if the BH-Army continued advancing towards the town, that they have 2,223 captured Muslims . [Cerkez] emphasised, women, children, and that he would kill all of them. [Cerkez] also told [him] that [he] would have to go on local television, and to ask the Muslims of Stari Vitez to surrender their arms. 1617
Dr. Mujezinovic telephoned the ABiH 3rd Corps commander, General Hadzihasanovic, and made a speech on television calling the Muslims to hand over their arms. Other persons called together by Dr. Mujezinovic also sent Dario Kordic’s message to their respective acquaintances 1618 .
707. On the following morning, two local HDZ officials, Ivan Santic and Pero Skopljak , arrived to repeat the threat made by Mario Cerkez. Lastly, Dr. Mujezinovic was forced to sign a document put in front of him by Ivan Santic according to which the Muslims and Croats agreed inter alia to implement the Vance-Owen Plan even before it had been signed by the Serbs 1619 .
708. In light of the foregoing, the Trial Chamber is of the view that all the Muslims in the hands of the Croatian forces interned at the aforesaid detention facilities on 19 and 20 April 1993 were threatened with death. This is incontestably so at least for those detained at Vitez cultural centre. Although not all were necessarily civilians, all were persons placed hors de combat. Moreover, the Trial Chamber is of the opinion that, in this instance, detention could in no way be deemed lawful because its main purpose was to compel the ABiH to halt its advance. The Trial Chamber points out that Mario Cerkez was the commander of the HVO Vitez Brigade and, in this role, was directly under the orders of General Blaskic. The offences mentioned in counts 17 and 18 are hereby constituted.
3. Inhuman and cruel treatment: human shields
709. According to the indictment, Bosnian Muslim civilians were used as human shields to prevent the Bosnian army from firing on HVO positions or to force Bosnian Muslim combatants to surrender. The HVO allegedly used human shields in January or February 1993 in the village of Merdani and on 16 and 20 April 1993 in Vitez 1620 .
710. Thus, the accused allegedly committed a grave breach covered by Article 2(b ) of the Tribunal’s Statute (inhuman treatment - count 19) and a violation of the laws or customs of war covered by Article 3 of the Statute and recognised by Article 3(1)(a) of the Geneva Conventions (cruel treatment - count 20).
a) The arguments of the parties
711. The Prosecution submitted that the HVO’s use of Bosnian Muslim detainees as human shields was based on three events or distinct types of action. First, on 19 and 20 April 1993, the Bosnian Muslims detained at Vitez cinema were allegedly used as human shields in an attempt to halt the ABiH shelling the CBOZ and Vitez Brigade headquarters. Then, on 20 April 1993, the HVO purportedly placed 250 Muslim men, women and children around the Hotel Vitez for about three hours in order to try and halt the ABiH shelling of that zone. Last, the HVO was allegedly engaged in a widespread practice consisting of using the detainees forced to dig trenches on the front-line positions as human shields. The detainees thus placed in a dangerous situation around (or in) buildings constituting military objectives were allegedly victims of great physical and mental suffering or of serious attacks upon their human dignity 1621 .
712. On this point, the Defence did not prefer any other arguments than those used more generally in respect of detention issues.
713. To start with, the Trial Chamber reiterates its conclusion that the use of detainees to dig trenches at the front under dangerous circumstances must be characterised as inhuman or cruel treatment. The motive of their guards is of little significance .
714. Around 20 April 1993, Vitez and in particular the HVO headquarters at the Hotel Vitez were shelled 1622 . That same day, following the attack on Gacice village by Croatian forces, a column of 247 Muslim men, women and children 1623 was directed to a spot just in front of the Hotel Vitez. Once there, the men were led off elsewhere 1624 . Witness Hrusti c was seated in a shell crater opposite the Hotel:
One of the soldiers said, while we were standing there, "you are going to sit here now and let your people shell you, because they have been shelling us up to now, and you better sit down and wait". 1625
The persons assembled were watched over by soldiers inside the Hotel Vitez. They told them that whoever moved would be instantly cut down. After about two and a half to three hours, the persons were taken back to their village 1626 .
715. Moreover, the Trial Chamber recalls that on 19 and 20 April 1993, many Muslim civilians were detained at Dubravica school, also the billet of the Vitezovi, and at Vitez cultural centre, the headquarters of Mario Cerkez. Nonetheless, although it is conceivable that a military force might seek to protect its headquarters unlawfully by detaining members of the enemy there, the Prosecution did not prove beyond all reasonable doubt that the detainees in question were aware of a potential attack against which they were allegedly used as protection. Unlike for the Hotel Vitez , it was not established that the detainees at Dubravica school and Vitez cultural centre suffered as a result of being used as human shields.
716. In conclusion, the Trial Chamber is of the view that on 20 April 1993, the villagers of Gacice served as human shields for the accused’s headquarters in Vitez . Quite evidently, this inflicted considerable mental suffering upon the persons involved. As they were Muslim civilians or Muslims no longer taking part in combat operations, the Trial Chamber adjudges that, by this act, they suffered inhuman treatment (count 19) and, consequently, cruel treatment (count 20).
4. Individual criminal responsibility of General Blaskic
717. The Prosecution submitted that the crimes described above were committed by persons either acting pursuant to an order or plan of Tihomir Blaskic, at his incitement or with his aid and encouragement 1627 . Moreover, the Prosecutor highlighted that pursuant to Article 7(3) of the Statute the evidence also demonstrated that the accused was criminally responsible for the crimes 1628 .
718. The Defence maintained that none of the evidence proved that General Blaski c gave the orders or actively participated in any other way in committing the detention related crimes. In addition, the Defence asserted that General Blaskic had no command responsibility over the detention related crimes since he did not know nor had he any reason to know that ill-treatment was being meted out. In the opinion of the Defence, the accused took many measures either to prevent the crimes or to punish the perpetrators thereof and he had no authority to control or sanction the administrators of the detention centres in central Bosnia 1629 .
719. The Trial Chamber will first determine General Blaskic’s responsibility for the crimes committed in the detention centres and then examine his responsibility in respect of the trench digging.
720. The above analyses demonstrate that the illegal confinement and detention of male Muslim civilians was a recurring feature of the attacks conducted by the HVO in the municipalities of Busovaca, Kiseljak and Vitez. Hence, these persons were detained in a manifestly organised way. In this respect, the Trial Chamber highlights that HVO soldiers informed some Muslims that they were being detained under order 1630 . Other persons were transported in HVO buses to the prison in Kiseljak 1631 . Lastly, as the Trial Chamber will conclude below, General Blaskic ordered that many detainees be used to dig trenches throughout the CBOZ and some detainees were ultimately exchanged 1632 . The Trial Chamber deems that such a degree of organisation demonstrates that the highest levels of authority within the HVO were involved and therefore finds that the evidence establishes beyond all reasonable doubt that General Blaskic ordered the detentions.
721. The Trial Chamber holds that General Blaskic is responsible for the violence committed in the detention facilities pursuant to the principle of command responsibility enshrined in Article 7(3) of the Statute.
i. Tihomir Blaskic exercised "effective control" over the perpetrators of the crimes
722. The Trial Chamber recalls that all the detention centres were located in the CBOZ which General Blaskic commanded from 27 June 1992 1633 . The perpetrators of the crimes at the detention centres were HVO soldiers and also members of the Military Police.
723. It is not contested that General Blaskic commanded the regular troops of the HVO. The Trial Chamber is moreover convinced that the accused exercised effective control over the Military Police within the meaning of Article 7(3) of the Statute .
724. In this respect, as it has already asserted, the Trial Chamber recalls that General Blaskic was in command of the soldiers and Military Police implicated in the attacks on Ahmici, Loncari and Ocehnici in April 1993. It further affirms that pursuant to the rules on the training and activities of the Military Police 1634 , this group was under the authority of the accused as commander of the CBOZ when it came to accomplishing daily operational tasks. As one witness heard by the Trial Chamber explained:
The commander of the Operative Zone vis-à-vis a military policeman, regardless of whether he is in the reserve formation or active formation, could impose only disciplinary measure, and the greatest disciplinary measure that he could take was 15 days’ detention . After a 15-day detention, the military policeman would be returned to his unit and would continue to perform his regular duties. The commander of the Operative Zone, if there was a criminal act in question on the part of the military policeman , the commander could […] make a proposal for the prosecution of that individual and send that request to the military disciplinary judiciary or the chief of the military police, head of the military police administration, for him to undertake such measures 1635 .
725. The Trial Chamber thereby concludes that, throughout the period during which the previously described crimes were committed, General Blaskic incontestably held at least the material power to prevent the Military Police from perpetrating crimes or to punish the perpetrators thereof.
ii. Tihomir Blaskic "knew or had reason to know" that crimes had been committed
726. Having arrived at the conclusion that General Blaskic ordered that Muslims be detained, the Trial Chamber will next review whether he knew that crimes were being perpetrated at each of the detention sites.
727. The Trial Chamber recalls that the detainees at Kaonik prison were Muslim civilians. They were detained by HVO soldiers who were also responsible for violent acts at the prison.
728. The Defence contended that in January 1993 General Blaskic was isolated in Kiseljak and therefore did not know that civilians were being detained and subjected to ill-treatment 1636 . However, the accused himself declared that on 27 January 1993 he ordered the release of civilian detainees at Kaonik prison 1637 . His power to order the release of prisoners 1638 shows that he could actually find out about the circumstances in which the civilians were being detained. In this connection, the Trial Chamber notes that at the time , Blaskic knew that the Red Cross had become involved when it was informed that detainees were being ill-treated 1639 .
729. Moreover, Kaonik prison was very near Vitez and the warden of Kaonik prison admitted to being under the authority of the Vitez and Busovaca HVO commanders 1640 . Accordingly, the Trial Chamber reaches the conclusion that General Blaskic did know of the acts of violence which occurred over the first half of 1993 at Kaonik prison .
730. The Trial Chamber recalls that for about 8 months in 1993 many Muslims were detained in Kiseljak barracks. Violence was inflicted upon the detainees by HVO soldiers and military policemen. The particular fact that the detention centre was located in the same complex as Kiseljak HVO headquarters 1641 allows the Trial Chamber to conclude that General Blaskic must have known that acts of violence were taking place.
731. Murders and physical violence took place in Rotilj for the extended period of time that the HVO held Muslim civilians there. The Trial Chamber is of the view that through his subordinates, General Blaskic must have known what was going on in the village which lay 4.6 kilometres from HVO Kiseljak headquarters 1642 . From this perspective, the Trial Chamber underlines in particular that Mario Bradara , deputy commander of the Kiseljak HVO, acknowledged that he was aware of the detentions in Rotilj 1643 .
732. General Blaskic admitted to the Trial Chamber that he knew that civilians were being detained at Dubravica primary school 1644 . These included inter alia the women and children who had been placed around General Blaskic’s command post for two weeks. Nonetheless, he announced that he had not made any effort to investigate the circumstances under which people were detained because the civilian authorities and Red Cross were dealing with the matter 1645 . In addition, the Trial Chamber points out that the school also served as the billet of the Vitezovi. As a result , in the opinion of the Trial Chamber, General Blaskic could not have been unaware of the atmosphere of terror and the rapes which occurred at the school.
733. The Trial Chamber accordingly concludes that General Blaskic did know of the circumstances and conditions under which the Muslims were detained in the facilities mentioned above. In any case, General Blaskic did not perform his duties with the necessary reasonable diligence. As a commander holding the rank of Colonel, he was in a position to exercise effective control over his troops in a relatively confined territory 1646 . Furthermore, insofar as the accused ordered that Muslim civilians be detained, he could not have not sought information on the detention conditions. Hence, the Trial Chamber is persuaded beyond all reasonable doubt that General Blaskic had reason to know that violations of international humanitarian law were being perpetrated when the Muslims from the municipalities of Vitez, Busovaca and Kiseljak were detained.
iii. Tihomir Blaskic did not take the necessary and reasonable measures to punish the perpetrators of the crimes
734. The Defence highlighted that General Blaskic had no authority to control or sanction the detention centre administrators 1647 . Nevertheless, as established above, the Trial Chamber identified HVO soldiers or the Military Police as being the perpetrators of the crimes. The evidence demonstrated that the accused did not duly carry out his duty to investigate the crimes and impose disciplinary measures or to send a report on the perpetrators of these crimes to the competent authorities 1648 .
735. The Trial Chamber concluded that many detainees were forced to dig trenches on the front in dangerous conditions. These persons were detained at various facilities within the CBOZ – Kaonik prison, Kiseljak barracks, Rotilj village and in the town of Vitez at the cultural centre, the veterinary station, Dubravica school and the SDK building. While the detainees worked they suffered mental and physical violence inflicted by HVO soldiers and the Military Police.
736. The Defence refused to acknowledge that General Blaskic ordered or endorsed the use of civilian detainees to dig trenches 1649 . It argued that he was convinced that the work teams were lawful 1650 . Further, both the Kaonik prison warden 1651 and some HVO commanders admitted that using civilian detainees to dig trenches was necessary and that they were carrying out orders 1652 . One international observer considered that the HVO had deliberately used detainees for the purposes 1653 .
737. General Blaskic declared that it was not he who decided where the work teams went. He also stated that he was aware that the Geneva Conventions forbade forced labour on the front-lines 1654 . Notwithstanding this, the evidence proves that the accused effectively directed work teams by requiring them to dig trenches on the front-line 1655 . In this respect, the Trial Chamber further recalls that those performing forced labour at the front were guarded by HVO soldiers.
738. With particular regard for the degree of organisation required, the Trial Chamber concludes that General Blaskic ordered the use of detainees to dig trenches, including under dangerous conditions at the front. The Trial Chamber also adjudges that by ordering the forced labour Blaskic knowingly took the risk that his soldiers might commit violent acts against vulnerable detainees, especially in a context of extreme tensions.
739. Blaskic admitted knowing that civilian detainees were at various locations in Vitez around 17 April 1993 but denied having ordered their detention 1656 . He then contradicted himself by stating that he had ordered that the detainees be treated humanely and he also stated that he had had the power to release them 1657 .
740. The Trial Chamber notes that Mario Cerkez (commander of the Viteska Brigade and a direct subordinate of Blaskic) 1658 , other HVO military representatives and Ivan Santic and Pero Skopljak (local HVO civilian officials) were all directly involved in the taking of hostages on 19 and 20 April 1993. In addition, they clearly referred to the threat posed by the ABiH’s military advance towards the town of Vitez 1659 .
741. The Trial Chamber concludes that although General Blaskic did not order that hostages be taken, it is inconceivable that as commander he did not order the defence of the town where his headquarters were located. In so doing, Blaskic deliberately ran the risk that many detainees might be taken hostage for this purpose.
iii) Inhuman and cruel treatment: human shields (counts 19 and 20)
742. On 20 April 1993, 247 detainees were in front of the Hotel Vitez, General Bla skic’s headquarters in Vitez. Despite his presence in the building for a large part of the afternoon, the accused claimed that he knew nothing of it 1660 . However, there were many HVO soldiers in and around the Hotel whose frontage was glass 1661 . One of the soldiers said to one of the detainees in front of the Hotel that he would go and tell the commander 1662 . Moreover, the officer responsible for operations under General Blaskic, Slavko Marin, implicitly admitted that the civilians from Gacice village were put in danger 1663 . Finally, the Trial Chamber recalls that on 20 April 1993 the ABiH set in motion an extremely threatening offensive of which General Blaskic was well aware.
743. The Trial Chamber is therefore convinced beyond all reasonable doubt that on 20 April 1993 General Blaskic ordered civilians from Gacice village to be used as human shields in order to protect his headquarters.