Ex-Croatian generals acquitted of war crimes

The UN Yugoslav war crimes court acquitted Croatian ex-generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac of charges, including war crimes during the bloody break-up of Yugoslavia, and ordered them freed.

The appeals court “enters a verdict of acquittal” for Gotovina and Markac, Judge Theodor Meron said on Friday at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

The court’s packed public gallery erupted in cheers and clapping as the acquittal was read, with many people bursting out in tears and hugging Markac’s wife, Mirjana, who was at the hearing, as supporters outside uncorked champagne bottles.

Gotovina and Markac, considered heroes in Croatia, were last year jailed for 24 and 18 years respectively for the murder of Croatian Serbs during their country’s struggle for independence and the bloody and ethnically driven break-up of Yugoslavia.

But the court found that the initial convictions were based on the false premise that any artillery that landed on Serb-inhabited towns and was more than 200 metres from a military target was an attack on civilians.

Judges also overturned the finding of “a joint criminal enterprise whose purpose was the permanent and forcible removal of Serb civilians from the Krajina region”.