Tihomir Blaškić
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Tihomir Blaškić (born November 2, 1960 in Kiseljak, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Yugoslavia) was a Bosnian Croat army officer who had been sentenced for war crimes at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
Tihomir Blaškić was born in a poor family, where male children without means to support themselves traditionally either joined the Franciscan monks or became career soldiers. Blaškić opted for the latter and enrolled in military high school in Zagreb, training to become an officer in Yugoslav People's Army. He excelled there and later received prestigious post in the Presidential Guard of Josip Broz Tito. According to his own testimony, he cried during Tito's funeral.
In 1991, like most ethnic Croats, he left JNA with the rank of major and later joined the armed formation of the Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina the HVO (Hrvatsko vijeće obrane, lit. Croatian Defence Council). He rose to the rank of colonel in the HVO, commanding units in central Bosnia during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In 1996 the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) indicted him for crimes committed by troops under his command against Bosniaks in central Bosnia, particularly the Lašva valley, including grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, violations of the laws or customs of war and crimes against humanity.
At first, Franjo Tuđman reacted to this indictment defiantly and named Blaškić Inspector General of the Croatian Army.
Later in the year Blaškić was told by his military superiors that it was his duty to voluntarily surrender and he reluctantly did so; his trial began in 1997. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison in March 2000.
The case was in appeal until July 2004 when the ICTY appeals panel dismissed 16 of 19 counts in the initial indictment, notably the claim that Blaškić had command responsibility for the massacre in Ahmići and that Ahmići were not a legitimate military target. The decision has left some dubieties which will have to be resolved: it did not assess the nature of Croat-Muslim war in Bosnia in 1993–1994; it accepted the defense claim that there existed a "double chain of command".
The appeals panel did not completely dismiss him of all charges, as it reaffirmed the less serious charges of responsibility for the inhumane treatment of POWs (for example).
It reduced Blaškić's sentence to nine years of imprisonment, because of his good behavior, clear prior record, poor health, voluntary surrender and his young children. His defense applied for an early release because he served eight years and four months already, and the request was granted.
In August 2005 chief ICTY prosecutor Carla del Ponte filed motion for new trial, citing new evidence about Tihomir Blaškić's guilt.
[edit] Further reading
- Shahram Dana, Revisiting the Blaškić Sentence: Some Reflections on the Sentencing Jurisprudence of the ICTY, 4 International Criminal Law Review 321-348 (2004). [1]
- Blaskic Judgement overturned Due to Judge Jorda's Errors, Brian Gallagher, Globus, 15 October 2004
