Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP Partner,
Tomislav Z. Kuzmanovic, has begun representing Croatian General Mladen Markač , who is on trial in The Hague. Markač has been charged with crimes committed during the “Operation Storm” military offensive in Croatia, which lasted from August 4, 1995 to November 15, 1995.
The case will be tried in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), an ad hoc tribunal established by the United Nations Security Council in the 1990s. Kuzmanovic, who was awarded the Order of the Croatian “Pleter” for his contributions toward Croatia’s independence, has already successfully defended two defendants before the ICTY.
The trial is expected to last more than one year. Possible witnesses to be called by the defense in Markač’s case include: Peter Galbraith, the U.S. Ambassador to Croatia during the Clinton Administration; Richard Holbrooke, a former U.S. Ambassador to the UN and a key participant in negotiating the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, which brought an end to more than three years of war in Bosnia; U.S. General Wesley Clark, a retired four star general and former Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO from 1997 – 2000; William Perry, who served as U.S. Secretary of Defense during the Clinton Administration; and Lord David Owen, a British diplomat who in January 1993 co-authored the Vance-Owen Peace Plan, an attempted peace proposal for Bosnia's warring factions.
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