Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 8997

1 Thursday, 17 June 2004

2 [Open session]

3 --- Upon commencing at 9.00 a.m.

4 [The accused entered court]

5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Registrar, would you please

6 call the case.

7 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, Case Number IT-01-47-T, The

8 Prosecutor versus Enver Hadzihasanovic and Amir Kubura.

9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. Registrar. Can

10 we have the appearances for the Prosecution, please.

11 MR. MUNDIS: Good morning Mr. President, Your Honours, counsel,

12 everyone in and around the courtroom. For the Prosecution, Mathias

13 Neuner, Daryl Mundis, the case manager Andres Vatter, and I anticipate

14 that Ms, Tecla Henry-Benjamin will be joining us shortly. Thank you.

15 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Before giving the floor to

16 Defence counsel for their appearances, shall we go into open session

17 because I see we're in closed session. And on the transcript it says

18 Wednesday, though are Thursday. Today is Thursday.

19 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, we are in open session.

20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] So the transcript will be

21 corrected, and will indicate Thursday instead of Wednesday and it should

22 be the 17th of June.

23 Can we have the appearances for the Defence, now.

24 MS. RESIDOVIC: [Interpretation] Good morning, Mr. President, good

25 morning Your Honours. On behalf of General Enver Hadzihasanovic, Edina

Page 8998

1 Residovic, defence counsel, Stephane Bourgon, and Muriel Cauvin, legal

2 assistant. Thank you.

3 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] And the other Defence team.

4 MR. IBRISIMOVIC: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honours. On

5 behalf of Mr. Kubura, Rodney Dixon, Fahrudin Ibrisimovic, and Nermin

6 Mulalic, legal assistant.

7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you. The Chamber and the

8 Judges bid good morning to all those present, to the representatives of

9 the Prosecution, of the Defence, the accused, all the staff of this

10 courtroom, and Madam court reporter. We will in a moment continue with

11 the testimony of the witness. I call on the Defence to make sure that as

12 far as the first accused is concerned, that they complete their

13 examination today. This should be done so as to allow the other Defence

14 team to have an hour and a half as they requested because it is quite

15 possible that the Prosecution and the Judges may have additional

16 questions.

17 Does Mr. Mundis have an observation to make at this stage of the

18 proceedings?

19 MR. MUNDIS: Thank you, Mr. President. The Prosecution does

20 indeed have an observation to make. Earlier, the Prosecution indicated

21 that we were not in possession of the written diaries of the witness. It

22 turns out, Mr. President, that due to the alertness of a member of

23 additional -- of a different trial team who is temporarily assigned to our

24 case, in reading the transcript this attorney alerted me to the fact that

25 we do in fact have the diaries. We have the diaries covering the period

Page 8999

1 from August 1991 through the end of 1994. We immediately took steps

2 yesterday to disclose those handwritten diaries to the Defence, which was

3 completed early in the evening yesterday. We have translations of only

4 the period covering about August 20th, 1993, through the 3rd or 4th of

5 October, 1993, focussing on a different case.

6 I have asked the investigation commander to undertake an

7 investigation as to why this was not -- why this material didn't turn up

8 in the electronic searches which the Prosecution has undertaken. The

9 preliminary explanation which I received was the fact that the diaries are

10 obviously handwritten; the search engines that we use to locate material

11 is based on an OCR or optical character reader. The OCR technology has a

12 very difficult time with handwritten material, and an examination of the

13 diary indicates that the witness or his own name only appears in several

14 locations within the diary which is as one would expect, the witness would

15 not be referring to himself by his own name. As a result of that, our

16 preliminary indications are that the technology was unable to recognise

17 his handwritten name in the material, which is why it did not come up on

18 an electronic search. Further inquiries are being made in this matter.

19 Again, the Prosecution assures the Trial Chamber and the Defence that we

20 are doing everything possible to comply with our disclosure obligations.

21 This material, as I said, was disclosed to the Defence last evening, and

22 assuming that the Trial Chamber would like that material we can take steps

23 to either provide the original or photocopy of the original and the

24 translated portions that we do have, or we can certainly submit whichever

25 portions of that diary the Trial Chamber would like to have translated

Page 9000

1 into English or French or both. Obviously, the total is 560 handwritten

2 pages. That will take a significant period of time to get translated.

3 But if the Chamber wants that or certain portions of that, we will request

4 translations to be made. And as I said, we will provide the Trial Chamber

5 with whatever part or all of that material that the Trial Chamber thinks

6 would be helpful.

7 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] So you are telling us that one

8 of your colleagues realised that this diary was already in the possession

9 of the Prosecution, and you are telling us that through electronic search

10 engines you were unable to detect it earlier. But as this diary has been

11 found, you can provide the Chamber not the 560 pages, of course, but only

12 the entries that correspond to the testimony of the witness. On this

13 point, has the Defence anything to tell us?

14 MS. RESIDOVIC: [Interpretation] Mr. President, it is quite true

15 that my learned friend informed us late yesterday afternoon that they have

16 found this diary, and about 7.00 p.m. the diary was provided to the

17 Defence. Of course, we haven't had the time to review such voluminous

18 material by this morning, but it is the position of the Defence of

19 General Hadzihasanovic that we will continue with our cross-examination

20 and only should the study of this diary lead to any additional questions

21 that should be put to the witness, we will in that case request that the

22 witness be recalled for additional examination. Thank you.

23 Let us hear the other Defence counsel.

24 MR. IBRISIMOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. We

25 have nothing further to add to what Ms. Residovic has said.

Page 9001

1 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. We will in a moment

2 during the break discuss the matter amongst ourselves and let you know

3 what our position is. As far as I'm concerned, I'm able to say that I'm

4 looking forward with impatience to the investigator who is going to

5 testify next week. I have a number of technical questions to put to him;

6 namely, what he does when he has a witness and when he shows him

7 documents. We have seen that it is possible to show the witness a

8 document when he recognises it, but if a witness has a document in his

9 possession, what does the investigator do? Does he ask him to provide a

10 copy? Does he make a report saying that he has received a copy? There

11 are a series of technical issues that should they be dealt with in

12 advance, then these problems would not arise. If there's a list of

13 documents that were discussed with the witness by the investigator, then

14 we wouldn't be having this type of problem. And of course, I will look

15 through the Rules and see if there is any need to contact the competent

16 authorities with regard to this. We have taken up 10 minutes of time, but

17 without further ado, we shall now call in the witness.

18 And go into closed session.

19 [Closed session]

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2 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.48 p.m.,

3 to be reconvened on Friday, the 18th day of June,

4 2003, at 9.00 a.m.

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