Croatia awaits verdict in Ante Gotovina war crimes trial

 "Judges in The Hague will on Friday deliver their most important verdict on Croatia's conduct in the war against the Serbs in the 1990s, ruling after a three-year criminal trial on whether Zagreb prosecuted a policy of terror and murder to drive out the large Serbian minority.
A decade after he was indicted for the "ethnic cleansing" of at least 90,000 Serbs from Croatia in 1995, Ante Gotovina, a commander in the storming of Serbian strongholds that changed the course of the wars in Croatia and Bosnia, is to learn his fate at the international war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

The verdict is keenly awaited in the Balkans, and with great nervousness in nowhere more so than Zagreb. The influential Roman Catholic church has been calling for prayers and fasting in the hope of an acquittal.

Marches and "pilgrimages" have been organised. The Croatian prime minister, Jadranka Kosor, is urging "calm and dignity" as thousands of former fighters prepare to vent their spleen if Gotovina and two former fellow ex-commanders are found guilty.

Huge screens were being erected in Zagreb on Thursday night to transmit the verdict live from The Hague. While it has focused mainly on Gotovina and his two fellow accused, the trial looms larger because it has provided the main opportunity to examine the strategy and conduct of the hardline nationalist leadership of Croatia during the war."
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