000717ED

Page 22836

1 another four, I think, today, two dealing with character; is that right?

2 MR. SAYERS: Two deal with character, two deal with an issue as to

3 which we can call a witness, if it's necessary. It's the absence of any

4 familial relationship either by consanguinity or marriage between the

5 Boban family and the Kordic family.

6 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

7 MR. SAYERS: I wouldn't have thought that's controversial but if

8 it is, we can call a live witness.

9 JUDGE MAY: I doubt it. Now, the other issue then is the

10 exhibits. You were going to produce a guide for us through them.

11 MR. SAYERS: Yes, we have done that. I've already distributed a

12 copy to your legal officer, but we have some extra copies here. The

13 only -- the principal difficulty we faced, Mr. President, is we are not

14 permitted to pre-assign exhibit numbers to our exhibits, so what we tried

15 to do was to put -- to organise each of the exhibits into separate subject

16 matter areas and put those in a separate binder so that it will be easier

17 for the Court to follow, and we've made a list of the outstanding binders,

18 so that the Court can follow them and that's ready for distribution.

19 In addition, we have, as I told the Court we would, we have

20 prepared an index to all of the exhibits that we have offered into

21 evidence so far and that's ready for distribution as well. Finally, there

22 were some videotape exhibits that we have prepared and we have prepared an

23 index for them as well. Thank you.

24 I might also alert the Trial Chamber that only last weekend we

25 received another significant package of documents from UNPROFOR. We've

Page 22837

1 been through those. We're aware that the Court is awash in paper and we

2 have selected, I think, four separate documents from a pile that's about a

3 foot high that we would propose to include, and we'll submit a separate

4 volume of those tomorrow. It will be adjuncts to those in our outstanding

5 list of UNPROFOR documents.

6 JUDGE MAY: I seem to remember that Mr. Nice was asking us not to

7 deal with admissibility issues in his absence, but we'll see what we can

8 deal with and consider the position generally for the Prosecution. Is

9 there anything else you want to add?

10 MR. SAYERS: No.

11 JUDGE MAY: How long do you anticipate that the final witness will

12 take?

13 MR. SAYERS: We met him on Friday. He is out of pocket today on a

14 commercial deal. He's currently in private business. I would not think,

15 from looking at the matters that we discussed in the contours of his

16 testimony, that he would be more than one hour on direct examination, Your

17 Honour. Thank you.

18 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Scott, are you going to deal with matters?

19 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour.

20 JUDGE MAY: The exhibits, the affidavits, and the transcripts.

21 MR. SCOTT: May it please the Court.

22 Your Honour, we are a bit surprised by this. We had understood

23 that this would not be taken up until later in the week and, as you know,

24 as the Court has already indicated, Mr. Nice isn't here and will not be

25 returning to The Hague until ...

Page 22838

1 THE INTERPRETER: Will Mr. Scott slow down, please.

2 MR. SCOTT: [previous translation continues] ... very long over the

3 weekend on other matters including now apparently witnesses who have been

4 cancelled.

5 THE INTERPRETER: Could Mr. Scott slow down, please.

6 MR. SCOTT: [previous translation continued] ... in fact, Your

7 Honour, we are not in a position to -- -- I would not be completely

8 accurate if I said to the Court we haven't been working on these issues to

9 some extent but they are in progress. We are not an a point where we

10 would be prepared to discuss them in any great detail because we simply

11 have not finalised our review of these matters.

12 The -- just handed out unless -- perhaps Mr. Sayers can tell us

13 where we can find this guide on exhibits, we don't seem to -- I'm not sure

14 we have that. It was just handed out a few minutes ago. Some of these

15 documents, Your Honour, again we have not even seen yet. The UNPROFOR

16 documents, I think there were two additional binders that were delivered

17 on Friday afternoon. Again, Your Honour, we just simply have not had time

18 to digest these items. The exhibits in particular, I think, are quite

19 long to deal with.

20 THE INTERPRETER: Could the counsel slow down, please.

21 JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Scott, you are being asked by the

22 interpreters to slow down.

23 MR. SCOTT: I'm sorry, Your Honour. Thank you. That would be our

24 position, Your Honour. We just simply feel that we are not able to

25 respond today. We had anticipated that the witnesses would take us

Page 22839

1 through Wednesday or Thursday and had prepared our schedule accordingly.

2 JUDGE MAY: Well, it means that the Court will not be occupied

3 tomorrow.

4 MR. SCOTT: I understand that, Your Honour. I can only say

5 that's, of course, not at the Prosecutor's feet. I mean we thought we'd

6 be calling two witnesses, two witnesses now being cancelled by the

7 defence. So we can't -- all I can say, Your Honour, is we can't control

8 that. They were not our witnesses that were cancelled.

9 JUDGE MAY: Well, if the matter is not dealt with until the end of

10 the week, Thursday would be available, clearly, providing you can contain

11 the cross-examination of the witness within the morning because we are

12 only sitting on Wednesday morning in this case. We are sitting on other

13 matters in the afternoon.

14 MR. SCOTT: We'll certainly -- that's what we have been

15 anticipating, Your Honour, again depending how long the witness goes. The

16 defence says one hour. I find that a bit surprising but it's possible.

17 But this is a high-level figure who was involved in, again, a large

18 volume, a number of issues. So it surprises me some to think that he can

19 be handled with such dispatch, but I suppose it's possible.

20 Your Honour, we would -- while we're on the subject of that

21 particular witness, if I can say, Your Honour, we would also be surprised

22 and would be curious to know the reasons why he would need to appear in

23 closed session. It's not readily apparent to me why -- to us why that

24 would be the case. We would also ask to receive his outline so that we

25 can facilitate going through him as quickly as possible. So far, of

Page 22840

1 course, we have not received anything on that, Your Honour. So that's

2 where we are at the moment.

3 JUDGE MAY: But one way or another, whichever course we choose to

4 take, or decide to take, this matter must clearly be finished by lunchtime

5 on Friday, and that concludes all the arguments about admissibility.

6 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, I think that, as to the issues, as to the

7 exhibits, the affidavits and transcripts, once we can focus our final

8 position, I don't think that will take long. It's not a question of the

9 length of stating our position; it's just in simply coming to having the

10 further opportunity, as we thought we would, to finalise our position.

11 But in actually stating it to the Court, I don't see any reason why that

12 should take a long period of time. I mean, preliminarily I anticipate

13 that as to the transcripts, some of them may not be -- will probably not

14 be contested and some will. But I'm not sure that the -- sorry. I'm

15 being told -- I seem to be picking up speed again. I don't anticipate,

16 Your Honour, that our position would take long to state.

17 JUDGE MAY: It may be helpful, certainly in respect of the

18 transcript witnesses, if we can have something in writing.

19 MR. SCOTT: We can do that, Your Honour. Perhaps I can

20 anticipate -- perhaps I can extend this possible way forward: We may not

21 be able to resolve and come to a conclusion, to our conclusion, on all

22 these issues by Wednesday, but it may be that, at least on some pieces,

23 such as the transcript, one may lend itself to a quicker response. I can

24 tell the Court that we will give the Court our position at the earliest

25 moment.

Page 22841

1 JUDGE MAY: We shall want to know what it is by Thursday morning.

2 MR. SCOTT: At the latest, Your Honour.

3 JUDGE MAY: Very well.

4 [Trial Chamber confers]

5 JUDGE MAY: Very well. We shan't -- we will not sit tomorrow, in

6 order that these matters can be dealt with. We shall anticipate hearing

7 the witness on Wednesday and hearing the argument on Thursday, and if at

8 all possible, the parties should have in mind to finish everything by

9 Thursday evening.

10 Mr. Kovacic, we have now your list of witnesses. You'll be ready

11 to start on the 24th?

12 MR. KOVACIC: Yes, sir. We will be ready to start on 24, as you

13 requested us earlier.

14 JUDGE MAY: And you will provide the Prosecution with the outlines

15 of the first witnesses?

16 MR. KOVACIC: Yes, sir. If I only may -- I'm sorry.

17 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

18 MR. KOVACIC: If I only may ask for flexibility on our final list

19 of the witnesses to be filed only after we survive those two weeks. I'm

20 using the term since we are -- and I believe you appreciate that, that we

21 are starting with our case about seven weeks before originally scheduled.

22 And it is not only that, but also the other reasons which I mentioned,

23 primarily the documents coming out from various offices in Republic of

24 Croatia. And it is a problem, particularly -- not only for analysing and

25 classifying those documents, but also translation. And it does pose a

Page 22842

1 problem, as, for example, I'm seeing some of those documents to be used

2 with the couple of first witnesses and I'm not sure whether we will

3 receive until then the translations.

4 So I'm only trying to point out that we will ask the Court for a

5 certain amount of flexibility, and during the summer recess we will try to

6 recuperate. We will ask the Court registry for more assistance in

7 translation. We are discussing the matter of translation with the

8 Prosecutor's office. There is agreement reached that the party who will

9 obtain the translation first will exchange with the other party, and we

10 will also try to compare the listings of the document obtained in Zagreb,

11 because it is somehow a strange situation. We are having kind of a

12 running discovery parallel in the same time with presentation of the

13 case. So at least we are trying to compare whether we are having the same

14 documents, because we were told in Zagreb by the government officials that

15 we are receiving reciprocally the copies, and that seems to be the case,

16 at least up to certain moment in that process, but it seems that it is not

17 the case anymore, because it seems there is confusion, if I may say so, in

18 a technical sense. But I guess that during the time we will know exactly

19 whether the parties are given the same documents.

20 Anyway, we are ready to cover those two weeks so that the Court

21 will not waste time, and then to recuperate with all the listings of the

22 witnesses and the documents as well during the recess, and then to

23 continue in some more ordinary fashion in September.

24 JUDGE BENNOUNA: You are speaking of the summer recess? You think

25 that there is a summer here in The Hague? Or elsewhere, perhaps, you will

Page 22843

1 be.

2 MR. KOVACIC: It should be elsewhere. Thank you.

3 JUDGE MAY: Very well.

4 MR. SCOTT: Sorry, Your Honour. Excuse me for a moment. Just on

5 the Cerkez defence, I just need to note very quickly. Unfortunately, Your

6 Honour, unless we've looked at the wrong list, five of the nine witnesses

7 listed by the Cerkez Defence for the first two weeks do not appear to be

8 on the 22nd of May witness list. So five out of nine witnesses do not

9 appear to be listed, and accordingly, nor have we received even the short

10 summaries of these witnesses. So they are new names to us and without any

11 summaries. We ask no particular action on that, Your Honour, save this,

12 at this time, and that is: We would simply like to receive the outlines

13 and summaries even more so, for that reason, because these witnesses were

14 not listed.

15 JUDGE MAY: Well, Mr. Kovacic, no doubt you can cover that as

16 expeditiously as possible.

17 MR. KOVACIC: Of course, Your Honour. I'm planning, indeed, to do

18 that during tomorrow's day. And it is not five; it is only three, I

19 think, I've not covered by now. And those, I can assure, in advance to

20 everybody, are extremely small and short witnesses. The Prosecution

21 office will be able to read them and to analyse them in the matter of an

22 hour, and certainly there is no document to search about them. Thank you,

23 sir.

24 JUDGE MAY: Thank you. Wednesday morning, then, half past 9.00.

25 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 3.49 p.m.,

Page 22844

1 to be reconvened on Wednesday the 19th day of July,

2 2000, at 9.30 a.m.