Page 117
1 Tuesday, 6 July 2004
2 [Status Conference]
3 [Open session]
4 --- Upon commencing at 2.58 p.m.
5 JUDGE ROBINSON: Will the registrar call the case, please.
6 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honour. Good afternoon, Your Honour.
7 This is the case number IT-02-65-PT, the Prosecutor versus Mejakic,
8 Fustar, and Knezevic.
9 JUDGE ROBINSON: And may we have the appearances.
10 MS. SUTHERLAND: Ann Sutherland, Michael McVicker, Katharina
11 Margetts, assisted by Sebastian van Hooydonk, acting case manager for the
12 Prosecution, Your Honour.
13 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you very much.
14 And for the Defence.
15 MR. SIMIC: [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Your Honour.
16 Attorney Jovan Simic on behalf of the accused Zeljko Mejakic.
17 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Simic.
18 Yes.
19 MR. LUKIC: Good afternoon, Your Honour. Branko Lukic for
20 Mr. Momcilo Gruban, as of today.
21 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you very much.
22 Yes.
23 MS. NEDIC: [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Your Honour.
24 Slobodanka Nedic, on behalf of Dusko Knezevic.
25 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.
Page 118
1 MR. IVETIC: Good afternoon, Your Honour. May it please the
2 Court. Dragan Ivetic from Chicago, on behalf of Mr. Fustar.
3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Ivetic.
4 This is a Status Conference, as you know, pursuant to Rule 65 of
5 the Rules. I have a list of issues, and I will follow that list.
6 First I'll start with pending motions. There is a Prosecution
7 Rule 92 bis motion filed the 17th of December, responses filed the 30th
8 of January. The motion is a substantial one, running to ten binders of
9 material.
10 The Prosecution, I understand, will file a modification to seek
11 admission of much of the material under Rule 89(F) as distinct from
12 Rule 92 bis.
13 Ms. Sutherland, is there anything that you want to say in
14 relation to this?
15 MS. SUTHERLAND: Only that the Prosecution is re-reviewing all of
16 the scheduled incidents to the indictment, and we wish to complete that
17 review prior to filing the addendum to the motion. The review of the
18 incidents are twofold: For Rule 68 material that has not been previously
19 disclosed, and in order to try and streamline the case, as has been
20 ordered by the Trial Chamber in the past. So we are wanting to complete
21 that exercise, which is to date 60 per cent complete, before we file the
22 addendum.
23 JUDGE ROBINSON: So when will that be done, the review?
24 MS. SUTHERLAND: We are hoping to have the review done by the
25 court recess, and then we would file the motion by the second week of
Page 119
1 August.
2 JUDGE ROBINSON: I see. Thank you very much. Yes.
3 There is a Defence motion filed by Mr. Knezevic pursuant to
4 Rule 81. And I am to say that the Chamber will give a decision on this
5 motion shortly.
6 There is a Prosecution request for certification of appeal from
7 the decision of the Chamber on the motion concerning conflict of
8 interest. The Chamber will grant certification and a decision to that
9 effect will be ready perhaps by the end of the day.
10 I turn next to pre-trial briefs and Rule 65 ter filings. All
11 pre-trial submissions are complete. Disclosure, Rule 66(A)(i) and (ii)
12 disclosure, complete.
13 Mr. Knezevic -- or rather, I should say the counsel for
14 Mr. Knezevic, Ms. Nedic, I understand that you still raise the matter
15 relating to photo boards, but I think you have been told that this is a
16 matter that would be better addressed at the trial itself. It's a
17 matter that you can take up at the trial perhaps by way of
18 cross-examination.
19 On the matter of disclosure in general, I would wish to commend
20 all the parties for their efforts that have been put into this exercise.
21 I understand that great attention to detail has been paid, and I
22 congratulate the parties for that.
23 As regards Rule 68 disclosure, the Prosecution, I understand, has
24 made considerable efforts to complete its review and disclosure of
25 material produced in the Kvocka appeal from other cases and databases and
Page 120
1 from other material only recently provided to it. Much of the material
2 has already been disclosed and efforts are being made to complete
3 disclosure of additional material by the court recess. As the parties
4 are aware, disclosure under this Rule is an ongoing obligation.
5 I understand that there have been some practical difficulties
6 relating to the new system of disclosure, the e-disclosure system. And
7 I'd like to hear from the accused for the Defence about this matter, the
8 difficulties that have been experienced by them.
9 Yes.
10 MR. LUKIC: Your Honour, I think that we discussed this morning
11 during the 65 ter meeting the issue, and I'll try to explain what bothers
12 us and what protects [sic] Us to fulfil our duties sufficiently and
13 correctly.
14 I've been using this Xylab system for over three years, and
15 Xylab, as it is, is not perfect. But when put on the Net, it causes huge
16 problems for, I think, every user. This morning, speaking with the
17 members of the OTP, they shared with us that their system is not perfect
18 as well, which they use in the OTP. But I can enumerate a few things
19 that prevents -- prevent us from using Web Xylab correctly.
20 First of all, all Cyrillic documents that are not translated
21 cannot be found, because Xylab on the Web is not Cyrillic-searchable.
22 And we all know that at that time in Republika Srpska 99 per cent of the
23 documents are composed in Cyrillic letters.
24 Secondly, numbers are not searchable. So we cannot search the
25 documents through dates or ERN numbers.
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1 Also, there are some problems with diacritics, letters with
2 diacritics. That can be solved partially using stars or question marks,
3 but also it does not cover all the problems.
4 The system is very slow, and because of the huge amount of the
5 documents on the web page, sometimes the user gets 10.000 documents
6 opened at the same time if you search only for one word. It's not only
7 that you have to open a document; you have to read it. And to read
8 10.000 documents, which every contains probably several pages, it would
9 take several years to go through all of that. So we all agree, and
10 Ms. Sutherland promised us this morning that regarding 68 Rule documents
11 it would be very helpful if we get hard copies of these documents from
12 the Prosecution, because we don't have manpower and resources to search
13 all the documents on the web page.
14 I don't know if you need more clarification.
15 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you very much for highlighting these
16 technical problems.
17 Ms. Sutherland, is there anything you wish to say?
18 MS. SUTHERLAND: I just wish to clear up one point, Your Honour.
19 I intimated at this morning's Rule 68 ter conference that we would
20 disclose any Cyrillic documents that we came across in our Rule 68
21 searches because they are not available to be put on the EDS.
22 But as far as the other problems, there are certain terms that
23 can be used to fasten up the searches, and I can discuss those with
24 Mr. Lukic after the session. We have the same problems. In fact, we
25 have been advised the EDS is faster than the Prosecution's own system.
Page 122
1 But I will discuss with Defence counsel the best way in relation to
2 searching for numbers and diacritics after the session.
3 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you very much.
4 I'll also ask the senior legal officer to pay particular
5 attention to this matter, and if necessary, to raise it with the
6 Registrar.
7 Mr. Ivetic, I understand you continue to seek disclosure under
8 Rule 66(B) of material from interviews with Predrag Banovic. Are you
9 still seeking that disclosure?
10 MR. IVETIC: That is correct, Your Honour. We are still seeking
11 disclosure of statements or interviews with Mr. Banovic undertaken by the
12 Office of the Prosecutor. And we will be submitting a written request to
13 the prosecutor, as we discussed at this morning's 65 ter Conference.
14 JUDGE ROBINSON: Very well. Thanks.
15 I turn now to witnesses. The only expert witness is Dr. Greve
16 and transcripts of her prior testimony have already been admitted by the
17 Trial Chamber. She will not be a live witness. And the Defence teams
18 have agreed to call two or three common expert witnesses. I think that's
19 commendable.
20 Ms. Sutherland, can I ask you if you now have an idea of the
21 number of witnesses that you will be calling overall, taking everything
22 into account.
23 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, at the moment, the list stands at
24 56; however, given the ruling on the adjudicated-facts motion, it is
25 foreseen that we will have to add another six to eight witnesses to the
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1 witness list.
2 At the moment, it stands at 16 witnesses testifying viva voce for
3 the first time; 5 statements have been -- this is in the Rule 89 -- the
4 Rule 92 bis/Rule 89(F) motion which we filed sometime ago -- 5 witness
5 statements to be admitted pursuant to Rule 92 bis; and then 35 witnesses
6 who would be testifying partly viva voce and their prior testimony we
7 seek to have admitted pursuant to Rule 92 bis. However, we intend, as I
8 explained earlier, to file an addendum to that motion to have the
9 majority of the witness testimony tendered pursuant to Rule 89(F), so
10 those figures which are in the Rule 92 bis motion will change. But at
11 the current stage, it is 56 witnesses plus an additional 6 to 8 witnesses
12 which will be identified within the next several weeks and added to the
13 motion, because at this stage we would seek to have them admitted
14 pursuant to Rule 92 bis.
15 JUDGE ROBINSON: I see. Thank you very much, Ms. Sutherland.
16 I understand that the estimate for the total number of Defence
17 witnesses would be 110, and it is hoped that the trial could be completed
18 in a period of about six months. The case is actually ready for trial,
19 practically ready for trial, and it is my expectation that a Chamber will
20 be found to try this case before the end of this year.
21 The next Status Conference will be held on Wednesday, the 3rd of
22 November.
23 And I now ask the accused persons whether they have any statement
24 to make as is their right under the Rule, any statement concerning their
25 detention or any other matter relating to the trial.
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1 We'll start first with Mr. Mejakic.
2 THE ACCUSED MEJAKIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour. I
3 have no observations regarding conditions of detention. There are no
4 problems there, and I have no other matters that would require attention
5 at this Status Conference. Thank you.
6 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you very much, Mr. Mejakic.
7 Mr. Fustar -- thank you very much. Mr. Fustar.
8 THE ACCUSED FUSTAR: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I have no
9 observations regarding the Detention Unit, and they're treating us very
10 well and in a professional manner. I have nothing more to add. Thank
11 you.
12 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you very much.
13 Mr. Knezevic.
14 THE ACCUSED KNEZEVIC: [Interpretation] I have nothing to say,
15 Your Honour.
16 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you very much.
17 Is there any other matter that counsel wishes to raise?
18 MS. SUTHERLAND: No, Your Honour.
19 JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes.
20 [Defence counsel confer]
21 MR. LUKIC: The Defence has nothing to add to this, Your Honour.
22 JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you very much.
23 There being none, the hearing is adjourned.
24 --- Whereupon the Status Conference adjourned at
25 3.17 p.m.