120516SC

Page 131

1 Wednesday, 16 May 2012

2 [Status Conference]

3 [Open session]

4 [The appellants entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 2.38 p.m.

6 JUDGE LIU: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

7 Well, I'm sorry for the delay.

8 Madam Registrar, would you please call the case.

9 THE REGISTRAR: Good afternoon, Your Honour. This is case number

10 IT-05-87-A, the Prosecutor versus Sainovic et al.

11 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.

12 May I now please have the appearances of the parties; for the

13 Prosecution first.

14 MR. CROSS: Good afternoon, Your Honour. For the Prosecution, my

15 name is Matthew Cross, together with Ms. Laurel Baig, and our

16 Case Manager is Colin Nawrot.

17 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.

18 And now the Defence counsel, please.

19 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Your Honour, my name is Toma Fila, and

20 I'm Defence counsel for Mr. Nikola Sainovic. Thank you.

21 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.

22 MR. VISNJIC: [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Your Honour.

23 Tomislav Visnjic and Peter Robinson for Defence of General Ojdanic.

24 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.

25 MR. ALEKSIC: [Interpretation] Good day, Your Honour.

Page 132

1 Aleksandar Aleksic for General Nebojsa Pavkovic.

2 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.

3 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Good day, Your Honour. My name is

4 Mihajlo Bakrac, and I am Defence counsel for Mr. Vladimir Lazarevic.

5 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.

6 MR. IVETIC: Good afternoon, Your Honour. Attorneys Branko Lukic

7 as lead counsel and Dragan Ivetic as co-counsel for Mr. Sreten Lukic this

8 afternoon.

9 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.

10 Before we start, can all the parties hear the proceedings in a

11 language they can understand?

12 Mr. Sainovic, can you hear the proceedings in a language that you

13 understand?

14 THE APPELLANT SAINOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour. I

15 can.

16 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.

17 Mr. Ojdanic?

18 THE APPELLANT OJDANIC: [Interpretation] Yes, I can, Your Honour.

19 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.

20 Mr. Pavkovic?

21 THE APPELLANT PAVKOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, I can. I can

22 follow the proceedings, Your Honour.

23 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.

24 Mr. Lazarevic?

25 THE APPELLANT LAZAREVIC: [Interpretation] Everything's fine. I

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1 can follow.

2 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.

3 Mr. Lukic?

4 THE APPELLANT LUKIC: [Interpretation] I can follow the

5 proceedings, Your Honour.

6 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.

7 This Status Conference is called in accordance with the

8 Rule 65 bis (B) of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the Tribunal

9 which requires a Status Conference to be convened every 120 days during

10 the appeal proceedings to allow any person in custody pending appeal an

11 opportunity to raise issues in relation thereto, including the mental and

12 physical condition of that person.

13 In the present case, the last Status Conference was held on the

14 19th January, 2012. Today's Status Conference was scheduled by order

15 issued on 29th March, 2012.

16 First I would like to inquire into the status of the detention

17 conditions and the health situation of the Appellants.

18 If you have any concerns in relation to the detention conditions

19 or your state of health that cannot be resolved through the standard

20 procedures, I would invite you to raise them now, if you wish. This

21 discussion can take place in private session.

22 Yes, Mr. Lazarevic. Please.

23 THE APPELLANT LAZAREVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, thank you

24 for giving me the floor on this occasion.

25 With your leave, I feel it necessary to provide you with two

Page 134

1 pieces of information that concern my health. I don't really want to go

2 into the concrete problems that relate to my health. But the first piece

3 of information concerns the previous Status Conference held in January of

4 this year. This information has to do with my request submitted to the

5 authorities in the Detention Unit, in the Detention Clinic and in the

6 Detention Hospital. A request to assist me and -- to assist me in having

7 a prothesis implanted in my upper jaw. I took into consideration your

8 suggestion at the previous Status Conference and in fact your order, and

9 on the 4th of April this year I submitted a request to the authorities

10 for appropriate assistance. This request consisted of six pages, and I

11 stressed the fact that this problem had an effect on my health and, in

12 particular, on my digestive system.

13 I would briefly like to point out a matter that concerns the

14 problem I have. For several months now, the doctors from the

15 Bronovo Hospital have been trying to use various methods of diagnosis in

16 order to detect the illness afflicting my digestive system, and they

17 suspect that the illness concerned is Crohn's illness, which cannot be

18 cured and is a serious illness. To date, a diagnosis has not been

19 established. The problems I have persist, and my internal organs have

20 been bleeding for several months now. Only a partial form of therapy is

21 being provided for the time being, and it doesn't have any particular

22 results.

23 Given the state of my upper jaw and the fact that I have

24 practically no teeth left, this condition affects the illness I have and

25 also my quality of life. From the time when I submitted the request and

Page 135

1 to date, given that I haven't received an answer of any kind from the

2 authorities whom I contacted, I tried to establish direct contact, and I

3 asked orally for a response. I asked whether I would be provided with

4 assistance. First of all, on the 24th of April I made this request, and

5 the duty doctor in the clinic quite simply didn't give me an answer. He

6 didn't have an answer. On the 10th of May, I asked him again to provide

7 me with an answer.

8 I'll paraphrase what he said. He said that he did not yet have

9 an answer to my request, and he suggested that I contact the Court for

10 assistance.

11 Your Honour, I acted in accordance with your order from the last

12 Status Conference, and I submitted a request to the authorities in which

13 I asked for assistance in solving a serious health problem. I provided

14 them with a written request in which I asked them to provide me with

15 assistance. I asked whether this was technically possible, whether they

16 could do anything to organise such assistance, because if that were not

17 possible, I would have to contact someone else for assistance.

18 Given that that is the situation and I haven't received a

19 response yet, with your leave, Your Honour, I would like to ask you

20 whether this means that I now have to contact the Registry and ask them

21 for assistance. Because now I no longer know whom I should contact,

22 bearing in mind that this situation and such problems should not be

23 tolerated.

24 That was my first piece of information.

25 The second piece of information is even briefer.

Page 136

1 Your Honour, I'd like to inform you that the Tribunal's Registry

2 and my Defence are finalizing their preparations to have counsel of --

3 doctors from Serbia accepted or, rather, received. They should appear

4 towards the end of this month or the beginning of June. And, as medical

5 experts, they are to examine me to gain an overall impression of my

6 health condition, and I personally hope that they will also be able to

7 provide me with some form of assistance.

8 Your Honour, I would like to thank you once more for having given

9 me the floor, and for your patience.

10 I have now concluded. Thank you.

11 JUDGE LIU: Thank you, Mr. Lazarevic.

12 Mr. Lazarevic, I take note of your submissions in which you claim

13 that your internal organs are bleeding for several months. I believe

14 that is a very serious problem.

15 However, as I have recalled on several occasions, according to

16 the Rule 80 and 81 of the detention rules, where a detainee is not

17 satisfied with the conditions of his or her detention, he or she is

18 entitled to make a complaint to the commanding officer or his

19 representative at any time. And in case of an unsatisfactory response,

20 to make a written complaint without censorship to the Registrar who shall

21 inform the present.

22 I hope you could follow these proceedings. At the same time, I,

23 of course, would draw the attention of the Registrar to your submissions.

24 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, with your leave, if I

25 may take the floor.

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1 Mr. Lazarevic mentioned an exchange between the Defence and the

2 Registry, and that concerned an examination by a council of doctors, and

3 I just want it to be clear that they'll be a specialist for -- who will

4 be part of the council, and we hope to see whether he'll be able to

5 determine what the problems are. It will be a gastroenterologist.

6 As far as the problem that he has with his teeth, with his jaw,

7 that won't be dealt with in this examination by the council because

8 preparations were underway earlier on, and this problem came to a head

9 just before this Status Conference. So I will advise Mr. Lazarevic to

10 follow your instructions with regard to the problems he has with his

11 teeth. And given that he hasn't received a response from the duty doctor

12 and from the person in charge of detention, he will also have to contact

13 the Registry.

14 I wanted this all to be clear for the sake of the record. Thank

15 you, Your Honour.

16 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much for your clarification.

17 Are there anybody else who would like to make a complaint?

18 Well, I see none.

19 Before we turn to any issues that parties may wish to raise, I

20 would like to note that there are currently no pending motions in the

21 present case.

22 At this point, I would like to ask the parties whether they have

23 any other issues that they would like to raise.

24 I see none.

25 Is there any issues that the Prosecution would like to raise?

Page 138

1 MR. CROSS: Nothing for us. Thank you, Your Honour.

2 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.

3 Well, I believe this concludes today's Status Conference. I

4 thank the parties for their attendance and adjourn the proceedings.

5 --- Whereupon the Status Conference adjourned

6 at 2.55 p.m.