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1 Friday, 2 November 2007
2 [Status Conference]
3 [Open session]
4 [The accused entered court]
5 --- Upon commencing at 2.14 p.m.
6 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you very much. Mr. Registrar, would you be
7 kind enough to call the case.
8 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honour. Good afternoon, Your Honour.
9 Good afternoon everyone in the court. This is case number IT-05-87/1-PT,
10 the Prosecutor versus Djordjevic. Thank you, Your Honour.
11 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you so much. And I would like to see if we
12 could get the appearances from the parties.
13 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honour. Good afternoon. My name is
14 Thomas Hannis, representing the Office of the Prosecutor. I'm joined by
15 trial attorney, Patricia Neema on my left and our case manager,
16 Mr. Iain Reid on my right.
17 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thanks a lot. And from the Defence.
18 MR. DJORDJEVIC: Good afternoon, Your Honour. I'm
19 Dragoljub Djordjevic, lead counsel for Vlastimir Djordjevic, and together
20 with me is co-counsel, Mr. Veljko Djurdjic.
21 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you very much, Mr. Djordjevic, and may I
22 extend a warm welcome to both of you on behalf of the Tribunal as Defence
23 counsels for Mr. Djordjevic. It's good to see you finally here, and I
24 hope that your cooperation with Mr. Djordjevic will turn out well.
25 This is, as you well know, a Status Conference which we are
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1 holding according to Rule 65 bis of the Rules, and we do this,
2 Mr. Djordjevic, because detention of persons accused before this Tribunal
3 is subject to judicial control, and for that reason we wish to see every
4 four months that the accused is well and alive, and also to raise issues
5 related to the progress of the pre-trial phase of your case. And this is
6 why we will meet every 120 days in a Status Conference.
7 Between the Status Conferences the team which I have available to
8 me will be in close contact with your Defence counsel, and I will follow
9 these meetings very closely in order to prepare the case for trial in
10 cooperation with the Prosecution.
11 So the purpose of the hearing today is to ensure that we have
12 started the preparation for trial and -- and that we have a plan for --
13 for the pre-trial phase. But, Mr. Djordjevic, maybe first of all I should
14 ask you if you can indeed hear me in a language that you understand. That
15 is good. I'm sure that you would have otherwise protested.
16 I have a few points on the agenda for the meeting today. First of
17 all, I wish to be reassured that disclosure of the material which the
18 Prosecution is bringing against you has been disclosed according to the
19 Rules; and secondly, I would like to say a few words about the motions
20 that are pending before this Chamber, before me. Then I would like to add
21 some words on the time plan that I have in mind for the pre-trial
22 proceedings, and then finally I will address you, Mr. Djordjevic, to
23 inquire about your health and your conditions of detention.
24 These are the points that we have on the agenda for today, and if
25 neither of the parties have anything to add, I suggest we go ahead.
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1 Is this acceptable?
2 MR. HANNIS: It is, Your Honour. Thank you.
3 JUDGE HARHOFF: That seems to be the case.
4 MR. DJORDJEVIC: No, nothing to add, Your Honour.
5 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you very much.
6 The disclosure is tied up on a few different points. First of
7 all, there is disclosure of the material which is contained and regulated
8 in Rule 66(A)(i), which is the supporting material, and I would like the
9 Prosecutor to confirm to me that this material has indeed been submitted
10 to the Defence.
11 MR. HANNIS: Your Honour, it has. We did provide it in September,
12 and it's my understanding that the Defence received it on the 20th of
13 September of this year.
14 JUDGE HARHOFF: Are you able to confirm that, Mr. Djordjevic?
15 MR. DJORDJEVIC: Yes. We received all these documents from the
16 OTP at September the 20th this year.
17 JUDGE HARHOFF: I'm very happy to hear this.
18 Secondly, there is the question of submission of the statements
19 according to Rule 66(A)(ii), the statements of the witnesses who will be
20 called eventually at trial, and I would like to suggest a time limit for
21 submission of all of these statements to the Defence by 13th December of
22 this year, which is a little more than a month, five weeks from now, and I
23 hope that this would be sufficient.
24 Mr. Hannis, can you confirm?
25 MR. HANNIS: Yes, Your Honour. That is agreeable with the
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1 Prosecution. We will comply with that date. Thank you.
2 JUDGE HARHOFF: Very well. So I suspect that by 13th of December
3 all of these statements will be submitted. Of course, this will depend in
4 the end on your final witness list, so that we, as soon as we have the
5 final list, will be able to also ensure that all the statements will
6 eventually be submitted to the Defence in good time.
7 Thirdly, there is the issue of disclosure of exculpatory material
8 according to Rule 68. Now, as this is an ongoing obligation, it makes
9 little sense to apply any deadline for submission of this kind of
10 material, but I would be happy if we could have a word from the
11 Prosecution to confirm that at least the material which at present has
12 been discovered by the Prosecution to be of an exculpatory nature will be
13 handed over to the Defence, and I suggest you do this no later than 13th
14 December if that is agreeable.
15 MR. HANNIS: Yes, Your Honour, that is agreeable, and we
16 understand that that will be a continuing obligation as we go along.
17 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you. The same applies to the Defence's
18 possibility of inspecting the material which is in the hands of the
19 Prosecution, notably books, documents, photographs, and other tangible
20 objects. Also here, I think that this is an ongoing right or an existing
21 right for the Defence to do so at any time, so I'm hesitant to put forward
22 any time limit for this, but of course the sooner the Defence knows which
23 books and materials it wishes to inspect and let the Prosecution know the
24 better. So I don't think it is necessary to -- to apply any time limit
25 for this issue.
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1 And finally there is the issue of expert reports. Most trials
2 have the advantage of being assisted by experts on both sides, but for the
3 Prosecution's expert -- possible experts, I don't know if the Prosecution
4 in this case will call any experts, but if you do so, I would suggest you
5 seek to submit those expert reports before the 15th of March, 2008, which
6 is well ahead of the trial time.
7 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.
8 JUDGE HARHOFF: Is that agreeable to the Prosecution?
9 MR. HANNIS: It is agreeable to us, Your Honour. Thank you.
10 JUDGE HARHOFF: Very well. I think that this exhausts the issue
11 of -- of disclosure, and I would like, therefore, to move on to the second
12 or the third point on the agenda, which is the issue of the pending
13 motions.
14 We have received from the Defence all together six motions, four
15 of which are requests for access to confidential material in other cases,
16 and that is in two of these cases these cases are ongoing trials, so
17 these -- your requests for access to material of a confidential nature in
18 these cases will be directed and have been directed to the -- to the
19 respective Trial Chambers, that is Haradinaj and Milutinovic. And in the
20 other two requests that you have made for access to material in the
21 Milosevic case and the Limaj case, we will deal with them in our Chamber,
22 and we will hand down our decision shortly.
23 Then, Mr. Djordjevic, you have also filed two preliminary motions,
24 one of which is raising objections against the jurisdiction of this
25 Tribunal, and the other is raising objections against the form of the
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1 indictment.
2 The jurisdiction motion that you have raised -- that you have
3 filed will be dealt with very shortly. I think the -- I'm not aware of
4 having received any response from the Prosecution at this moment, but you
5 may have filed it, I don't know. Have you filed --
6 MR. HANNIS: We have filed a response to both of those substantive
7 motions, Your Honour.
8 JUDGE HARHOFF: Very well. But I will be able to deal with the
9 first of these motions shortly, that is to say, the motion on the
10 jurisdiction issue.
11 The other motion that you have filed, Mr. Djordjevic, poses more
12 problems to us, because first of all, you have raised a number of
13 objections, and you have done so convincingly. Your motion is well
14 argued, and -- and if I find that there is need to -- to have some
15 corrections made to the indictment, then I will issue a decision asking
16 the Prosecution to clear up some of the weak points that you have
17 addressed in your motion. But in addition to that, of course we are all
18 aware of the fact that this case is closely related to the Milutinovic
19 case, and it is likely, although not certain, but it is likely that the
20 judgement in the first instance in the Milutinovic case will be rendered
21 before this case will be ready for trial.
22 I suspect that there is a possibility that we could go to trial at
23 the earliest possible time sometime next fall or perhaps towards the end
24 of the year. That will probably be the earliest possible time as things
25 stand right now. However, I also have to add that the experience shows
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1 that things can change very quickly, so that we will be asked to be ready
2 for trial at an earlier point.
3 But unless something unexpected happens from now on, then my
4 prediction will be that sometime next fall or by the end of the year will
5 be the earliest possible time that your trial can begin, Mr. Djordjevic.
6 So if the judgement in the first instance, in the Milutinovic
7 case, is rendered before that time, I would imagine that both parties will
8 wish to have a second look at the indictment so as to see if any changes
9 are called for by virtue of the Milutinovic judgement.
10 So the conclusion of all of this is that a final position on just
11 what the final indictment will look like may not be possible to -- to
12 decide at this moment. So that's why I suggest that we start out by
13 looking at your motion, your preliminary motion on the form of the
14 indictment, and make the changes that may appear, that may come out of
15 your motion, and then ask the Prosecution to include these changes in a
16 revised version of the indictment, and then we will keep open the
17 possibility for perhaps including further changes and amendments in the
18 indictment after the Milutinovic judgement has been delivered.
19 I am aware of the difficulty that this may cause to the Defence,
20 because, of course, you would wish to know what you're up against as soon
21 as possible so that you can prepare your defence. I'm saying this because
22 I don't wish to -- to delay the final version of the indictment for too
23 long, because the longer we wait in doing this the more difficult it will
24 be for you to organise your defence. So we will have to find some sort of
25 a middle ground by which we will be able to at least focus on the main
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1 parts of the indictment and perhaps then deal with the details of the
2 indictment in a more flexible way. But all of this will be discussed in
3 the 65 ter meetings with the Senior Legal Officer and the parties.
4 Very well. That is what I have to say about the pending motions
5 and the time plan of this case, which brings me to the point where I would
6 like to address you, Mr. Djordjevic, and ask you about your health. Are
7 you in good shape?
8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes, I feel fine.
9 JUDGE HARHOFF: I'm happy to hear this. And do you have any
10 remarks to make about the conditions under which you are detained here?
11 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] No. The conditions in place are the
12 same as for any other inmate. Therefore, I have no objections to them.
13 JUDGE HARHOFF: This brings us to the end of this Status
14 Conference. What we should perhaps do is to look at the calendar and
15 decide on a time when we can have the next Status Conference, but if we
16 don't have our calendars with us, then I suggest that we leave it to the
17 Senior Legal Officer to call the parties and to arrange for the next
18 Status Conference and the next 65 ter meetings in the case.
19 Anything to add, Mr. Hannis?
20 MR. HANNIS: No, Your Honour. Thank you.
21 JUDGE HARHOFF: Mr. Djordjevic?
22 MR. DJORDJEVIC: I agree. No any complaint about that. Thank
23 you.
24 JUDGE HARHOFF: Well, thank you very much. This concludes the
25 Status Conference, and we are adjourned.
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1 --- Whereupon the Status Conference adjourned
2 at 2.35 p.m.
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