Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 3550

1 Tuesday, 19 March 2002

2 [Open session]

3 --- Upon commencing at 9.06 a.m.

4 [The accused entered court]

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Brdjanin, good morning to you. Are you hearing

6 me in a language that you can understand?

7 THE ACCUSED BRDJANIN: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honour.

8 Yes, I am.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you. You may sit down.

10 General Talic, good morning to you. Can you hear me in a language

11 that you can understand?

12 THE ACCUSED TALIC: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honours. I

13 can hear you in a language I can understand.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you.

15 Madam Registrar, could you call the case, please?

16 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honour. This is case number IT-99-36-T,

17 the Prosecutor versus Radoslav Brdjanin and Momir Talic.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: Appearances for the Prosecution?

19 MS. KORNER: Joanna Korner, together with Denise Gustin, case

20 manager. Good morning, Your Honours.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: Good morning to you, Ms. Korner. Good morning to

22 you, Ms. Gustin.

23 Appearances for Mr. Brdjanin?

24 MR. ACKERMAN: Good morning, Your Honours. I'm John Ackerman with

25 Tania Radosavljevic for Mr. Brdjanin.

Page 3551

1 JUDGE AGIUS: Good morning to you both.

2 Appearances for General Talic?

3 MR. DE ROUX: [Interpretation] Good morning, I am Xavier de Roux

4 assisted by Natasha Fauveau-Ivanovic and Fabien Masson.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. So that I'm sorry we started a few minutes

6 late, after 9.00. The reason is I was finalising the arrangements for the

7 ex parte meeting that you have asked for. That will be held in this Trial

8 Chamber, in this courtroom, at 2.15, in other words half an hour after the

9 end of the sitting. I tried to find a smaller place but there are some

10 administrative difficulties and it's easier to have it here for all

11 intents and purposes. So 2.15, we will meet here.

12 MS. KORNER: Well, Your Honour having raised it, I should say that

13 for the record, we've asked for an ex parte hearing.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes.

15 MS. KORNER: Can I mention one other matter?

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes.

17 MS. KORNER: That is that in respect of the Rule 70 motion which

18 Mr. Ackerman has refiled today --

19 JUDGE AGIUS: I haven't seen the new version.

20 MS. KORNER: No. All I want to say is this, Your Honour. Your

21 Honour, we said we'd be able to respond before the break on Thursday. The

22 situation has slightly altered in that there is a meeting arranged with

23 the provider, at the end of this week, with representatives from the

24 Office of the Prosecutor. We would wish for that meeting to take place

25 before we respond to the motion, and therefore, we'd ask for the normal

Page 3552

1 length of time for a response to a motion. I'm sorry, Your Honour, it may

2 affect our response.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: There is no problem, Ms. Korner.

4 MS. KORNER: We would reply next week.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. Next week, we will not be sitting. I will

6 make arrangements for my secretary to keep me informed because I won't

7 even be here, but if you can hand in also electronic copies of the

8 response, then I can have it e-mailed, even though I can have it faxed as

9 well, but I prefer e-mail rather than fax.

10 MS. KORNER: Yes, Your Honour, we will do that.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. I thank you. So we can have -- yes

12 Mr. Ackerman?

13 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, what I -- I need to inform you of a

14 couple of things. The Rule 70 motion is now in two parts. There's an

15 initial part which is entitled "Confidential amended motion regarding Rule

16 70, its use and disclosure thereunder." And that is -- it's not a

17 significant amendment of the original. There's an additional prayer there

18 that was simply inadvertently left out of the original. And then there is

19 a confidential annex A to the amended motion which contains material that

20 previously was in the motion itself. Once you have an opportunity to look

21 at these, I think you will agree that the confidentiality with regard to

22 the motion itself could be lifted. And I would ask on the record that you

23 lift that confidentiality as soon as you've satisfied yourselves that

24 there's no reason for it to be confidential at this point.

25 The second thing that I have filed -- and in working on it

Page 3553

1 yesterday, it just became clear that this was probably the only logical

2 way to deal with it. I filed a memorandum in support of my oral request

3 for guidance as to Rule 92 bis. And it's a fairly short memorandum. It's

4 only a couple of pages, two and a half maybe or something like that. I've

5 given it to the Prosecutor this morning. And it raises issues that I

6 think we all have concern about with regard to Rule 92 bis. And I think

7 this might be a way to assist the Trial Chamber in trying to resolve some

8 of the issues. So that's the way I've done it. I expect now that

9 Ms. Korner will with that in hand provide you with the Prosecutor's views,

10 which may not be dramatically different from our own. Thank you.

11 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, that is right, that we will -- we can

12 deal with that before the end of this week before we rise on Thursday, and

13 we will.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. I thank you.

15 So usher, could you bring the witness in, please.

16 And we'll go into closed session first.

17 [Closed session]

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25 [Open session]

Page 3646

1 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, I'm at -- we're there. I'm at page 11

2 of 30 pages of cross-examination notes. That doesn't necessarily mean I'm

3 a third of the way through. It could mean I'm halfway through. But then

4 the numbers will increase a bit, because I have a whole afternoon to think

5 up other things to ask him. But I think -- I think I won't finish by --

6 by close tomorrow. I'll probably be with him another hour or so on

7 Thursday.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: Thursday.

9 MS. KORNER: Well, then, Your Honour, the only reason I ask is

10 obviously because we will have time on Thursday, then.

11 There are a number of possibilities. The first is that we could

12 go back to Variant A and B. I take Mr. Ackerman's point that it's being

13 litigated at the moment. In this trial, it seems to be a very long and

14 ongoing process. Whether it's worth re-litigating it here until there's

15 some decision reached there, I know not.

16 The other matter is the question of the documents, Your Honour.

17 I'm still -- I know Your Honours weren't deeply enthusiastic, but I've

18 just been going through the documents that haven't been looked at yet by

19 witnesses, although some will be looked at by witnesses yet to come. We

20 could perhaps use the time by simply taking a short canter through some of

21 those documents. Your Honour, I raise that simply for consideration.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. We could do that. So we'll --

23 Yes, Mr. Ackerman.

24 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, it's my understanding that in another

25 version of this Trial Chamber, the Bosanski Samac case, that starting next

Page 3647

1 week on the 25th that they will be actually calling witnesses regarding

2 the Variant A/B thing. And the word I heard was "witnesses." And so it

3 appears to me that it's being set up to be very comprehensively dealt with

4 in that Chamber, assuming that Chamber is able to start on the 25th. I'm

5 not quite certain of that, but that was the original plan. And that that

6 is the first agenda item on their return to work. So it would seem to me

7 that a comprehensive treatment of that issue is going to be done by that

8 Trial Chamber, and it might behove us to just wait and see what happens

9 there rather than spend time doing a less than comprehensive job with it

10 here. So that's the first thing.

11 And the other thing is I just want to repeat that I really have no

12 enthusiasm for listening to Ms. Korner read documents.

13 MS. KORNER: Well, I was going to read them to Mr. Inayat, but

14 we'll see.

15 Your Honour, I simply -- I do simply make the point, I don't -- it

16 is my firm belief from having done a number of cases that contain large

17 quantities of documents, it tends to get lost unless one has a brief look

18 at them.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Anyway, tomorrow morning at 9.00. I thank

20 you.

21 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.45 p.m., to

22 be reconvened on Wednesday, the 20th day of March,

23 2002, at 9.00 a.m.

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