Defence Has Difficulties Obtaining Documents

Defence attorney Irena Pehar prepared the documents but the Prosecution objected to authenticity of those pieces of evidence.

“None of these pieces of evidence has been stamped by The Hague Tribunal. The documents obtained from the Croatian Defence Council, HVO, which are held in the archives in Zagreb, have not been stamped either,” Prosecutor Sanja Jukic explained.

Pehar responded by saying that the Defence was not in a position to obtain original copies of each one of the 91 pieces of evidence, which it intended to introduce. 

“The Ministry of Defence has submitted to us only five of the pieces of evidence we requested. They said they did not have the others. We were not able to check whether it was true or not. Unlike the Prosecution, the Defence is not able to obtain evidence from The Hague Tribunal either,” Pehar said.

She said that she had no choice but to download documents, which had been issued publically, from the Internet.

In order to solve this problem the Trial Chamber requested the Defence to provide it with the Internet addresses from which the documents had been downloaded. Also, it suggested to the Prosecution to check whether stamped copies of those pieces of evidence were available in other cases.

Jukic, former member of the Croatian Defence Council, HVO, is charged with having participated in the persecution of Bosniak civilians, murders and forced disappearances from Prozor from July to September 1993.

The trial is due to continue on November 14.