Case: IT-00-39-T

IN THE TRIAL CHAMBER

Before:
Judge Alphons Orie
Judge Joaquín Martín Canivell
Judge Claude Hanoteau

Registrar:
Mr Hans Holthuis

Decision of:
31 August 2005

PROSECUTOR

v.

MOMCILO KRAJISNIK

________________________________________

DECISION ON ADMISSION OF DOCUMENTS TENDERED BY MR KRAJISNIK

________________________________________

Office of the Prosecutor:

Mr. Mark B. Harmon
Mr. Alan Tieger

Counsel for Mr. Krajisnik:

Mr. Nicholas Stewart
Mr. David Josse

 

TRIAL CHAMBER I of the International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991 (the "Trial Chamber" and the "Tribunal", respectively);

BEING SEIZED of four written requests from Mr Krajisnik, dated 2 and 3 July 2005, for the admission into evidence of a number of documents used during his cross-examination of witnesses Bjelobrk, Prstojevic, Witness 680, and Tupajic;

NOTING that on 4 July 2005, Mr Krajisnik provided the Registrar with four bundles of documents relating to these four witnesses, all in the Serb language;

NOTING that the Trial Chamber and the parties received English translations of these documents on 29 July 2005 and that the Prosecution did not subsequently raise any objections to the admission of the documents into evidence;

NOTING that one of the documents tendered in relation to the testimony of witness Prstojevic, namely, a letter dated 13 March 1992 from the Serb Democratic Party Executive Board, is already in evidence as Prosecution exhibit P65, tab 108;

NOTING that one of the documents proposed for admission in relation to the testimony of witness Tupajic, namely, the "original minutes from the 16th session of the Assembly of the Serb people in Bosnia-Herzegovina held on 12 May" (which the Trial Chamber understands to mean the complete stenographic record of that Assembly session), is already in evidence as Prosecution exhibit P427;

NOTING that one of the documents tendered in relation to witness Tupajic is an excerpt from the newspaper Politika showing three maps, and that the reproduction is so poor that the Trial Chamber cannot clearly establish what the maps represent;

CONSIDERING that the Trial Chamber cannot admit this document into evidence unless a better reproduction is provided;

NOTING that in relation to the testimony of witness Bjelobrk, Mr Krajisnik proposed for admission the complete stenographic records of two sessions of the Assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina held on 26 and 27 June 1991, and 26 and 27 January 1992 respectively, but that he did not provide those stenographic records in their entirety, submitting to the Registrar only some extracts from the Assembly session of 26 and 27 January 1992;

CONSIDERING that the Trial Chamber can admit into evidence only those documents which Mr Krajisnik has actually provided to the Registrar;

CONSIDERING that all of the other documents tendered by Mr Krajisnik meet the requirements for admission under Rule 89C of the Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure and Evidence;

HEREBY ADMITS into evidence those documents tendered by Mr Krajisnik which are listed in the annex to this decision and instructs the Registrar to assign exhibit numbers to those documents.

 

Done in English and French, the English version being authoritative.

Done this 31st day of August 2005.
At The Hague, The Netherlands.

______________________
Alphons Orie
Presiding Judge

[Seal of the Tribunal]


ANNEX

TO DECISION ON ADMISSION OF DOCUMENTS TENDERED BY MR KRAJISNIK

Documents admitted into evidence by this decision

Witness

Description of document

Boro Bjelobrk

Extracts from the session of the Assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina held on 26 and 27 January 1992.

Excerpt from David Owen’s book Balkan Odyssey, undated, p. 88 (BCS version).

Two excerpts from David Owen’s book Balkan Odyssey, undated, p. 266 and p. 312 (BCS version), reproducing maps entitled ‘Map 11: EU Action Plan, December 1993-February 1994’ and ‘Map 12: Contact group map, July 1992’ respectively.

Witness 680

Two reports by the SRNA news agency entitled ‘Former BH Territorial Defence arrests Dr Biljana Plavsic’ and ‘Mladic statement: I am requesting the peaceful withdrawal of the JNA’, 19 May 1992.

Excerpt from Kerim Lucarevic’s book The Battle for Sarajevo: condemned to victory, undated.

Milan Tupajic

Map showing the Muslim proposal to Mr Cutilheiro, reproduced in Oslobođenje, 19 March 1992.

Map of Cutilheiro’s proposal for Bosnia-Herzegovina, reproduced in an article by Dragan Radisic entitled ‘Chronology of Events in the Former Yugoslavia, 1990-1995’, Glas Srpski, undated.

Neđjeljko Prstojevic

Excerpts from the diary of Ljuba Grkovic, 20 December 1991.

Decision of the Bosnian-Serb Assembly annulling the decision on the formation of war commission in the municipalities in time of war or imminent threat of war, 17 December 1992.

Order of the Serb Municipality of Ilidza establishing a war presidency, 16 January 1993.

Proclamation by the Serb Assembly of Bosanska Krupa of the Serb municipality of Bosanska Krupa, 11 December 1991.