The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has rejected a request by the ICTY Prosecutor's Office in the "Gotovina, Cermak and Markac" case that a subpoena be issued against Croatia over the alleged concealment of the requested military documents, so-called artillery logs, the UN war crimes tribunal announced on Tuesday.
The trial chamber in this case said it could not determine with sufficient certainty whether the documents which the prosecution has been seeking from Croatia for the past two years and which it considers the key incriminating evidence against the three Croatian generals, notably Ante Gotovina, still existed.
"Having considered the uncertainties discussed above, regarding creation, continued existence and/or whereabouts of the documents requested by the Prosecution, the Chamber finds that it would not be appropriate to issue an order ... to produce these requested documents", read the Chamber's decision written on more than 50 pages.
The Chamber emphasised that this decision is without prejudice to Croatia's obligation to cooperate with the tribunal in regard to the present matter.
"In sum, a number of questions remain without definite answers," said the Chamber.
"It is at the same time clear that the Croatian government in recent years has taken proactive approach and made substantial efforts to intensify the search for the documents."
The assessment of the reliability of information relevant for the requested production of documents remains, as in the past, not without problems, the Chamber said.
The Croatian government has been claiming for years that it has forwarded all the documents requested by the ICTY Prosecutor's Office and that it has launched a comprehensive administrative search for those still missing. In connection with that several persons, who were allegedly in contact with the said documents, are currently standing trial in Croatia.
Until recently, the so-called artillery logs were the main obstacle to the continuation of Croatia's EU membership talks, as several EU members blocked the opening of Chapter 23 Judiciary and Fundamental Rights, citing the dissatisfaction of ICTY Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz as the reason.
After Brammertz submitted his latest report to the UN Security Council in mid-June, Brussels approved the re-opening of negotiations on Chapter 23, and the chapter was finally opened at an intergovernmental accession conference on 30 June.
