IN THE APPEALS CHAMBER

Before:
Judge David Hunt, Presiding
Judge Fouad Riad
Judge Wang Tieya
Judge Rafael Nieto-Navia
Judge Mohamed Bennouna

Registrar:
Mrs Dorothee de Sampayo Garrido-Nijgh

Order of:
12 October 1999

PROSECUTOR

v

Zejnil DELALIC, Zdravko MUCIC (aka “PAVO”), Hazim DELIC
and Esad LANDZO (aka "ZENGA")

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ORDER ON ESAD LANDŽO’S EMERGENCY MOTION FOR GUIDANCE REGARDING THE FILING OF PARTICULARS

_____________________________________________________________

Office of the Prosecutor:

Mr Upawansa Yapa
Mr Christopher Staker
Mr Norman Farrell
Mr Rodney Dixon

Counsel for the Defence

Mr John Ackerman for Zejnil Delalic
Mr Tomislav Kuzmanovic and Mr Howard Morrison for Zdravko Mucic
Mr Salih Karabdic and Mr Tom Moran for Hazim Delic
Ms Cynthia Sinatra and Mr Peter Murphy for Esad Landžo

 

THE APPEALS CHAMBER 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 ("International Tribunal");

BEING SEISED of the “Emergency Motion of Appellant, Esad Landžo, for Guidance Regarding Filing Particulars of Passages from Videotapes" filed on 5 October 1999 ("Motion");

NOTING the "Defendant Esad Landzo’s Notice of Appeal", filed on 1 December 1998, wherein he sets out his grounds of appeal including, inter alia, that his right to a fair and expeditious trial pursuant to Articles 20 and 21 of the Statute of the International Tribunal "were violated when verdict and sentence were rendered by a Trial Chamber whose presiding Judge was permitted to sleep through much of the proceedings" ("Fourth Ground of Appeal");

NOTING the "Order on the Second Motion to Preserve and Provide Evidence", issued on 15 June 1999 ("Order of 15 June"), in which the Appeals Chamber ordered, inter alia, that viewing of videotapes of proceedings produced by Camera 3 in Courtroom I and Camera 3 in Courtroom III during the trial of the Appellant ("Trial Videotapes") be permitted subject to a number of conditions, including the conditions (i) that no audio or visual copies of the videotapes shall be made by, or provided to, Counsel or Co-counsel for the Appellant or their legal assistant(s) or any other person, unless ordered by the Appeals Chamber, and (ii) that only Counsel or Co-counsel for the Appellant are permitted to view those portions of the Trial Videotapes recording the Appellant’s trial conducted in closed session;

NOTING the “Order on the Appellant Esad Landžo’s Second Motion for an Extension of Time to File Brief", issued on 15 June 1999 ("Second Order of 15 June"), in which the Appeals Chamber granted leave (i) to the Appellant to file a Supplementary Appellant’s Brief in relation to the Fourth Ground of Appeal on or before 13 September 1999, and (ii) to the Office of the Prosecutor to file a notice identifying and justifying the time it will require in order to file a response to that Supplementary Brief on or before 17 September 1999.

NOTING FURTHER the "Order on Motion by Esad Landzo for Extension of Time to File Supplementary Brief", issued on 29 July 1999 ("Order of 29 July"), in which the Appeals Chamber (i) extended until 15 October 1999 the time period in which Counsel or Co-counsel for the Appellant or their legal assistant(s) ("Appellant’s Representatives") may view the videotapes in question and in which the Supplementary Brief of the Appellant and a ‘notice providing details of the dates and times of those passages of the videotapes upon which he will rely’ ("Particulars") shall be filed, and (ii) extended until 21 October the time period in which the Office of the Prosecutor was to file a notice indicating and justifying the amount of time it will require to view the Trial Videotapes and to file a response to the Appellant’s Supplementary Brief;

NOTING that the equipment provided by the International Tribunal to the Appellant’s Representatives for viewing the Trial Videotapes was faulty, in that it did not enable the portions of the Trial Videotapes upon which the Appellant relies to be identified by the Appellant’s Representatives reliably, that this fault was only recently discovered, and that the individual Trial Videotapes which contain a portion already identified by the Appellant now need to be copied on to new tapes with a superimposed digital counter ("Copy Tapes") to enable the Appellant to identify those portions reliably;

NOTING that the Particulars will need to be given by reference to the superimposed digital counter in order to be useful to both the Office of the Prosecutor and the Appeals Chamber, and that the Appellant in the Motion seeks further time in which to view the Copy Tapes in order to provide the Particulars;

CONSIDERING that this situation has arisen through no fault of the Appellant and that an extension is warranted;

AND CONSIDERING that, as agreed by the parties on 7 October 1999, the most practical course at this stage is to suspend until further order the obligations imposed upon both the Appellant and the Office of the Prosecutor by the sixth and seventh orders of the Order of 15 June, as varied by the Order of 29 July;

NOTING FURTHER that the Appellant in the Motion seeks an order to the Registrar to approve travel for his legal assistant or investigator to travel to The Hague to complete the process of identification to enable the Particulars to be provided;

BUT NOTING that such approval has already been granted by the Registrar;

HEREBY ORDERS –

1. The Order of 15 June is further varied –

(1) to permit the Registry to make the Copy Tapes to enable the Appellant’s Representatives reliably to identify the portions of the Trial Videotapes upon which the Appellant relies,

(2) to enable the Appellant’s Representatives to view the Copy Tapes for the same purposes and under the same conditions as those stated in the Order of 15 June as if the word "videotapes" in that order were replaced by the words "Trial Videotapes and Copy Tapes" (as defined by this Order), and

(3) to suspend until further order the obligations imposed upon both the Appellant and the Office of the Prosecutor by the sixth and seventh orders made by the Order of 15 June and by the first and second orders made by the Second Order of 15 June, both as varied by the Order of 29 July.

2. The Particulars are to identify the portions of the Trial Videotapes upon which the Appellant relies in support of the Fourth Ground of Appeal by reference to the date, the videotape number and the superimposed digital counter on the Copy Tapes.

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

_______________________
David Hunt
Presiding Judge

Done this 12th day of October 1999
At The Hague,
The Netherlands.

[Seal of the Tribunal]