The president of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), Tomislav Karamarko, said on Wednesday he was unpleasantly surprised with both the application of the term 'joint criminal enterprise' and the length of the sentence for six former high-ranking officials from the wartime Croat entity of Herceg-Bosna, stressing that Bosnia and Herzegovina was exposed to Serbian military aggression, as was Croatia.
"The application of the term 'joint criminal enterprise' is absurd. There was an attempt to use the same term during the trials of our generals in The Hague," Karamarko said in the central Croatian town of Sisak.
He said the accusations against the first Croatian president Franjo Tudjman, who fought the aggression and supported Bosnia, were also absurd. "Had there been no such reaction (from Tudjman), Milosevic would have definitely occupied the entire Bosnia and Herzegovina," Karamarko said.
He said he expected the term 'joint criminal enterprise' to be quashed in the appeals proceedings and the final verdicts to be different.
