Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 454

1 Friday, 20 July 2001

2 [Status Conference]

3 [Open session]

4 --- Upon commencing at 4.00 p.m.

5 [The accused entered court]

6 JUDGE WALD: Good afternoon, everybody. Would the registrar

7 please call the case.

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

9 IT-98-34-PT, the Prosecutor versus Martinovic and Naletilic.

10 JUDGE WALD: Thank you. We'll take the appearances for the record

11 first. The Prosecution?

12 MR. SCOTT: Good afternoon, Your Honour --

13 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

14 MR. SCOTT: Good afternoon, Your Honour. Kenneth Scott for the

15 Prosecutor. With me today are Douglas Stringer and Vassily Poriouvaev,

16 and as case manager, Ms. Kimberly Fleming. Thank you.

17 JUDGE WALD: Thank you. We'll take the appearances for the

18 accused. For Mr. Naletilic?

19 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Your Honour. I am

20 attorney Kresimir Krsnik, lead counsel, and my legal counsel,

21 Ms. Drenski-Lasan, and our legal assistant from Zagreb.

22 JUDGE WALD: Mr. Martinovic's counsel?

23 MR. SERIC: [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Your Honour. I am

24 attorney Mr. Seric. I am a member of the Croatian bar. And with me today

25 as co-counsel for the first time is attorney Zelimir Par from Zagreb.

Page 455

1 JUDGE WALD: Thank you. I welcome you all.

2 As you're aware, this Status Conference is convened under Rule 65

3 of the Rules of Procedure, which requires that we have a Status Conference

4 every 120 days to ensure the expeditious preparation for trial, and also

5 to allow the accused, which I will do at a later stage, to raise any

6 personal issues they may have as to the conditions of detention.

7 I think we have only a few matters to address today so we should

8 be out of here quite quickly. This may, as you all are aware, be our last

9 meeting together, but I think we all sincerely hope so.

10 As you again are all aware, we still have in operation a date of

11 September 10th for the beginning of trial in this case, a much awaited

12 event. Although the composition of your Trial Chamber, again as you are

13 aware, has not been finally announced by the President, we expect that

14 that will happen in the very near future, which brings up one matter, and

15 that is, I think, Mr. Scott, your letter to us whether or not you could

16 file your various motions in English rather than in English and French.

17 And I think you'll have to adjust, and of course the same thing would

18 apply to the Defence.

19 The situation is in transition, as you're aware, but the

20 accommodation which I have reached by talking to the relevant parties is

21 that for the present, for the present, as long as the Chamber, the final

22 composition of the Chamber has not been announced and that Chamber, when

23 it is announced, has not made a contrary ruling, it will be sufficient for

24 you to file your papers in English. Now, obviously, depending upon the

25 composition of that Trial Chamber, they might want to reverse that. But

Page 456

1 for the present, you can go ahead and file them --

2 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Your Honour. We appreciate that.

3 JUDGE WALD: -- in English.

4 Now, you're also all aware that the taking of depositions, in

5 accordance with the orders issued by the Trial Chamber, is going to begin

6 here in The Hague on this Monday. The accused will be present. It will

7 continue through Friday, the 3rd of August. The Legal Officer of Chamber

8 I, Mr. Olivier Fourmy, will be the Presiding Officer, and you have the

9 schedule, so that should proceed according to schedule.

10 Now, I'm aware of two outstanding motions here. The Prosecution

11 has filed a motion for protective measures for some of its deposition

12 witnesses. I'm not going to say anything more than that in open session.

13 It's my understanding that the Defence counsel, but I will give you an

14 opportunity, does not object to those, but let me make sure that that's

15 all right, without naming the witnesses or anything that would indicate

16 who they are.

17 Is that correct, Mr. Krsnik and Mr. Seric?

18 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Yes, that is correct, Your Honour.

19 The Defence has no objection.

20 MR. SERIC: [Interpretation] Neither do we, Your Honour.

21 JUDGE WALD: Thank you. Now, I would, in that respect, however,

22 Madam Registrar, like to go into private session to say one thing about

23 that motion. Tell me when we're in private session.

24 [Private session]

25 (redacted)

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7 [Open session]

8 JUDGE WALD: Does either the Prosecution or one of the Defence

9 counsel or both of the Defence counsel have any other issues at this stage

10 that they want to raise?

11 MR. SCOTT: If I may, Your Honour, just in terms of procedural

12 matters, primarily in terms of next week, I must say we were a bit

13 surprised to see today that apparently the court calendar was changed to

14 reflect full days on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We had been told

15 some weeks ago and thought until literally a couple of hours ago is that

16 we understood that Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday next week would only be

17 half days only in the afternoon.

18 To be perfectly transparent with Your Honour, we have planned on

19 that basis, and only have witnesses here sufficient to cover us through

20 Wednesday based on a half-day calendar. We just didn't know that the

21 schedule had changed until we looked at the court calendar today, but

22 there hadn't by any communication to us to that effect.

23 What we would propose, Your Honour, what we would request and what

24 we think with can do, we can advance the witness line-up to begin a full

25 day schedule on Wednesday, but we would request --

Page 460

1 JUDGE WALD: On Monday and Tuesday, you would request a half day.

2 MR. SCOTT: -- continue on the half day calendar on Monday and

3 Tuesday, otherwise we'll simply run out of witnesses.

4 JUDGE WALD: Let me be transparent with you, Mr. Scott.

5 Mr. Fourmy has been in charge of putting this together, and especially

6 because of the transitional nature of my continued role, I frankly have

7 not -- I've been given the schedule, but I haven't attended each part of

8 that.

9 I will make sure this gets communicated to Mr. Fourmy, and I will

10 make every attempt -- he's out of town right now, but I will make every

11 attempt to make sure that he knows it before Monday, but obviously you

12 will have to raise it again on Monday morning.

13 MR. SCOTT: All right.

14 JUDGE WALD: But I will do my best to get that message to him.

15 MR. SCOTT: We're prepared to take extra steps to move up a day,

16 but I'm not sure we can do better than that.

17 JUDGE WALD: Okay.

18 MR. SCOTT: Perhaps more mundane, Your Honour, but nonetheless,

19 we did also, in the same exercise looking at the calendar, saw that in the

20 second week of these depositions, this courtroom, Courtroom 3, becomes

21 available for the weeks commencing 30th of July and, quite frankly, Your

22 Honour, I think most people would say that it's much more pleasant

23 practising in this courtroom than Courtroom 2.

24 JUDGE WALD: I would say so myself.

25 MR. SCOTT: We would just put on the -- perhaps just raise, and

Page 461

1 Mr. Fourmy again can address it, but we would suggest that --

2 JUDGE WALD: So the second week --

3 MR. SCOTT: -- in the second week of depositions, perhaps we could

4 move to this courtroom.

5 JUDGE WALD: All right. All right. Well, I'll make sure that he

6 gets both those messages over the weekend so that when you raise them

7 again on Monday he'll be forewarned.

8 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Your Honour. The other thing, I'm not

9 quite sure where we are on this, and I hate to anticipate an issue which

10 may not exist at all, but perhaps discretion is better if I raise it now.

11 I don't know if the Chamber has had any thoughts in terms of the admission

12 of exhibits during the deposition procedure. We certainly do anticipate

13 offering exhibits, although not extensive exhibits, but primarily maps and

14 photographs with the deposition witnesses. Assuming there's some sort of

15 an objection, we just weren't quite sure how that might be handled. I

16 don't know if the Chamber has thought about that or not.

17 JUDGE WALD: I don't know if Mr. Fourmy has either, but I'll find

18 out.

19 MR. SCOTT: Okay, Your Honour.

20 JUDGE WALD: I'll forewarn him about that too.

21 MR. SCOTT: I think the only other thing, Your Honour, I had on my

22 agenda the translation issue, and I thank the Court for addressing that,

23 at least temporarily.

24 I think the only other thing that I would raise is, Your Honour,

25 in terms of the trial date, and I would hazard a guess on this, but I

Page 462

1 probably speak for opposing counsel as well, of course we've been told for

2 sometime that the 10th of September is likely to be a trial date.

3 However, there is no Scheduling Order or anything, frankly, official

4 setting that date, and we're now, as the Court well knows, less than 60

5 days away. I guess what I'm asking is if there's any further guidance

6 that you can give us.

7 JUDGE WALD: There is no further guidance that I can give you.

8 Your information is identical with mine. I was told very recently when I

9 checked that September 10th was the scheduled date for beginning. I think

10 more of that will become clear when the actual composition of the Trial

11 Chamber is announced. And again I can't tell you when that exact time

12 will take place, but it should be very soon.

13 MR. SCOTT: Thank you, Your Honour. I believe if I can just check

14 with my co-counsel ...

15 [Prosecution counsel confer]

16 MR. SCOTT: We have nothing further, Your Honour. Thank you very

17 much.

18 JUDGE WALD: Defence counsel, Mr. Krsnik, do you have any matters

19 to raise? Go ahead.

20 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Your Honour, just two points. The

21 first I should like to comment on, and I see that my learned friends from

22 the Prosecution also had the same problem, that the Defence still hasn't

23 received any schedule as to the order of witnesses. But we are ready and

24 we hope the depositions will go ahead in order.

25 There's another point that I wanted to underline at the Status

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Page 464

1 Conference and that has to do with the beginning of trial. The Defence

2 has a motion ready, and I haven't had time to communicate with the

3 Prosecution just yet, so if the trial were to begin on the 10th of

4 September, though we see we still don't know the exact date, the Defence

5 is ready to ask for a delay, because we need more time or, rather, at

6 least three months. We could begin perhaps on the 10th of September, but

7 we would request at least three months since the end of the Prosecution

8 case. I have a motion ready with the explanations.

9 JUDGE WALD: Let me make sure I understand you, Mr. Krsnik. Three

10 months from when? I mean, you say you have a motion. You need three

11 months. Three months from what date are you talking about?

12 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Either a delay of the opening of

13 trial or when the Prosecution completes its case, for the Defence to have

14 three months before it can begin its Defence case.

15 JUDGE WALD: Okay, I understand. Obviously, such a motion would

16 have to be addressed at the point that you know the composition of the

17 Trial Chamber and you know that a particular date has been scheduled,

18 okay? But thank you for notifying us. You said you had a second matter?

19 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Those were the two points. I just

20 wanted to confirm what my learned friends have said.

21 JUDGE WALD: Okay.

22 Mr. Seric, do you have anything?

23 MR. SERIC: [Interpretation] Yes, thank you, Your Honour. I will,

24 of course, not mention any names, but with your permission, I would like

25 to ask the Prosecution whether they will proceed according to this order

Page 465

1 of the witness list dated the 13th of July, and then I may have something

2 to add.

3 JUDGE WALD: Mr. Scott.

4 MR. SCOTT: Yes, Your Honour. I thought that was clear. But if

5 it wasn't, I'll affirm it now. The attachment to our filing on the 13th

6 of July, that order, 1 through 18, I mean that order is in effect. Thank

7 you.

8 JUDGE WALD: Does that answer the first part of your question,

9 Mr. Seric? Okay. Do you have anything further?

10 MR. SERIC: [Interpretation] I do, but my colleague Mr. Par will

11 address Your Honour.

12 JUDGE WALD: Okay.

13 MR. PAR: [Interpretation] Your Honours, we have another question

14 linked to the beginning of trial; namely, we consider it important to fix

15 the date when the Prosecution will disclose to us the list of witnesses

16 that will be called during their case in chief.

17 If we do, indeed, open trial on the 10th of September, we feel it

18 is the twelfth hour for us to receive the list of witnesses who will be

19 called during the Prosecution case in chief, for us to be able to have

20 enough time to prepare for the cross-examination. And we would appreciate

21 it if the Prosecution could give us an indication or Your Honour. That is

22 one point.

23 To take advantage of the fact that I am on my feet, connected with

24 any objections regarding the status of the detainees, our client has asked

25 us to convey to the Trial Chamber two problems that he has lately had;

Page 466

1 namely, while he's exercising or when he's receiving visits, his room is

2 being searched and some documents have gone missing. He noticed last

3 month that he lost a document with a list of witnesses on it and his notes

4 on that list. So I don't know what Your Honour can do in that

5 connection. But another matter that the client has asked us to convey is

6 that for four months now, he cannot get hold of a laptop computer which

7 was given to him by his brother as a gift, because for four months now,

8 that computer is being screened and checked, though it is a completely new

9 computer. And he considers this to be a kind of obstruction and he has

10 asked us to convey this to Your Honours.

11 JUDGE WALD: What I can do is make inquiries and try to get you

12 some answers, which I will do.

13 Okay. If we don't have other matters here, let me ask

14 Mr. Martinovic, your counsel has conveyed to us the two problems which

15 he's mentioned, which I will make some inquiries about and see if there

16 are some answers. Do you have anything else that you would like to tell

17 the Court about? Any other problems in detention or otherwise?

18 Mr. Martinovic, first, and then I'll get to you, Mr. Naletilic. I'm going

19 to get to you. Mr. Martinovic, do you have any others?

20 THE ACCUSED NALETILIC: [Interpretation] I apologise, Your Honour.

21 I apologise.

22 JUDGE WALD: Okay. I heard the two that your counsel talked

23 about. Do you have any others?

24 THE ACCUSED MARTINOVIC: [Interpretation] No, I do not.

25 JUDGE WALD: All right. Now, Mr. Naletilic, please. Tell us

Page 467

1 anything that you would like to.

2 THE ACCUSED NALETILIC: [Interpretation] No, thank you, Your

3 Honour.

4 JUDGE WALD: It's still a B-plus hotel, as you told us it was last

5 time? All right.

6 THE ACCUSED NALETILIC: [Interpretation] No. It's soon going to

7 become an A-category hotel.

8 JUDGE WALD: Okay. All right. Well, there are many things up in

9 the air, I'm well aware. I will relay all of the deposition -- I'll get

10 in touch with Mr. Fourmy and relay the questions that you raised about

11 depositions. Oh, there was one other thing I left undone. I'll make a

12 couple of inquiries and find out about Mr. Martinovic's complaints.

13 I didn't ask you, Mr. Scott, to respond to the question about

14 when, in your agenda, they would find out about the list of witnesses.

15 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, we have intended to file an amended 65

16 ter list, a summary, and frankly, again, that was partly dependent upon

17 the trial date. I'm particularly astounded in that regard to find out

18 that there may be a request for a three-month delay. But be that as it

19 may --

20 JUDGE WALD: But I believe that was a two-tiered request, as I

21 recall. It was either at the beginning or let you have your due. Now,

22 the second thing would clearly are up to the Trial Chamber in the

23 circumstances.

24 MR. SCOTT: Before the Defence starts.

25 Your Honour, what we would propose to do was file an amended 65

Page 468

1 ter list of summaries which frankly, will look very, very similar to the

2 one that has been filed for some time. Until the situation is further

3 clarified, what we propose to do, and I think it's been done in other

4 trials, is to arrange to give them batches of witnesses in exact order,

5 some a week or two weeks in advance of the witnesses being called, but in

6 the absence of reciprocal disclosure or any other cooperation with the

7 Defence on this issue, we would not propose to offer a master order of

8 trial at this time.

9 JUDGE WALD: Excuse me one second while I just look at the wording

10 of the rule.

11 So under 66(A)(ii) where it says, "Within the time limit

12 prescribed by the Trial Chamber or the Pre-Trial Judge, copies of the

13 statements of all witnesses whom the Prosecutor intend to call to testify

14 at trial," I'm just reading from the rules, you are construing that to say

15 that you will give, say, batch A of what, the first dozen, I don't know.

16 Give us a clue as to how that would work.

17 MR. SCOTT: Of course, Your Honour. In terms of the statements,

18 let me be clear, the statements there's been absolutely full disclosure.

19 JUDGE WALD: Okay. So we have they've got all that. So it's only

20 a question of what order.

21 MR. SCOTT: It's only a question of order.

22 JUDGE WALD: Although that does make a difference, as you're well

23 aware, to the Defence of where they spend their priority in doing their

24 investigation depending upon the order of which the witness is going to be

25 called.

Page 469

1 I think you can assume, that's all I can -- the only verb I can

2 use, but I think you can assume that the intent of baring the motion that

3 Mr. Krsnik told us he's planning to file, that it will begin right around

4 that time in September, because I know that the President has a firm

5 notion that the several trials which are at the top of the list, and this

6 is -- really have to get going, and I know other trials in which it's

7 already clear who the Bench is, that a schedule for a time are going to

8 operate.

9 So my guess is it will get started around there by which time,

10 maybe you can give us and the Defence counsel some notion if that is the

11 intended trial date when they would get their first list.

12 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, wouldn't have any problem anticipating

13 that. If the September 10th trial date remains firm, we can well in

14 advance of that at least give them a list of say the first 10 or 15

15 witnesses.

16 JUDGE WALD: What's well in advance, approximately?

17 MR. SCOTT: 20 days.

18 JUDGE WALD: That answers your question more or less, doesn't it,

19 counsel? Yes, go ahead.

20 MR. PAR: [Interpretation] Yes, it does, Your Honour. However, we

21 cannot be satisfied with the answer because we do not know what would be

22 the reason for us not being given those statements. We believe that today

23 is really the last minute for those statements to be given if the trial is

24 going to be -- will start very soon and we are going to spend the next 10

25 or 20 days for depositions, then it leaves us very little time for us to

Page 470

1 prepare ourselves for cross-examination of those witnesses.

2 In earlier cases, witness lists were provided even 60 days in

3 advance. I think that we have so far been highly cooperative with the

4 Prosecutor. We wanted to see the proceedings to be begin as smoothly as

5 possible, and I think that any delay on the part of the Prosecution would

6 really be unfair because I really don't see the reason why that is not

7 possible. If we receive it 15 or 20 days before the beginning of the

8 trial, we will be in the position to request a delay, an adjournment of

9 trial as well. So it is our position that those statements should be

10 given to us as soon as possible.

11 MR. SERIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour.

12 JUDGE WALD: Go ahead.

13 MR. SERIC: [Interpretation] If I may add, we believe that the

14 deadline mentioned by the Prosecutor is contrary to the time limits

15 prescribed in Article 67(A) which talks about reasonable time limit, as

16 early as reasonably practicable.

17 JUDGE WALD: Right. Let me ask you, Mr. Scott, is there some

18 reason why, if you know who the first 20 or the first whatever it is,

19 number of witnesses, if you know who they are, why they can't be told who

20 they are?

21 MR. SCOTT: Your Honour, the primary reason, to be perfectly

22 honest, is a practical one.

23 JUDGE WALD: What's that?

24 MR. SCOTT: It's a practical one in terms of ensuring that these

25 order -- that the order is, in fact, can be accomplished because, as Your

Page 471

1 Honour I'm sure has learned during your tenure here, and as Defence

2 counsel probably know, it is sometimes difficult to get the witnesses here

3 in the exact order that you wish and we can only attest to the deposition

4 exercise now about that.

5 So we can give -- we can give as list of names to the Defence as

6 long as it is fully caveated that it's at best efforts kind of basis.

7 JUDGE WALD: And that it might change.

8 MR. SCOTT: And frankly, in the trial experience I've had here, it

9 changes fairly regularly. But on a best efforts basis we can provide

10 that.

11 JUDGE WALD: You can provide that now or at least the first

12 component.

13 Let me ask you, both Mr. Krsnik and Mr. Seric, that seems to me a

14 reasonable offer by the Prosecution. I mean things happen. We don't have

15 an absolutely firm trial date now, and that would certainly give you a

16 heads up on who was likely to be in the first batch. Okay? If Mr. Scott

17 is willing provide you with that with the knowledge that there could be

18 changes.

19 Mr. Krsnik, go ahead.

20 MR. KRSNIK: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour. I do not

21 wish to count on my intuition and speculate because it is, I think, only

22 fair enough for the Prosecutor to draft an alternative list. If one

23 witness doesn't show up, the other certainly will. There are not

24 thousands of witnesses. If one witness is unable to come, then another

25 one will be called.

Page 472

1 I think it's a matter of fairness towards the Defence. The

2 Prosecution has been conducting this investigation from 1996 with 34

3 investigators, and I'm not going to address the issue in detail because I

4 have mentioned all that in my written brief.

5 We haven't received any documents, any documentation from the

6 Prosecutor and we don't know when we are going to get it. Let me give you

7 an example, from the tobacco station at Siroki Brijeg, a number of

8 documents were seized. We have only received a list of documents, but

9 without any contents of documents. It is a huge number of documents, and

10 we need adequate time to study those documents.

11 I believe that I -- the reasons for our requests are reasonable

12 and clear.

13 JUDGE WALD: All right. Let me leave it this way for the moment:

14 One, as to your latter request, it does seem to me you have a list of the

15 documents. This seems to me to be one of those areas, and especially

16 since you will be seeing a lot of each other in the deposition process

17 over the next two weeks, that you could be able to try to work out by

18 agreement/cooperation. If not, then you can make whatever motion you feel

19 you have to make.

20 As to the first, I think, Mr. Scott, in my view, it would be

21 useful if I were a Defence counsel, and in the past I have been, to get a

22 preliminary list, even if it's not perfect, of the first batch of

23 witnesses that you intend to call. We'll worry about it later if one

24 person can't show up and the other. So if you'd do that, that would be

25 great.

Page 473

1 Okay. Now, I think that covers everything. I will get all this

2 information to Mr. Fourmy over the weekend and I will try to inquire about

3 Mr. Martinovic's problems. And as I say again, it's been great. I've

4 enjoyed working with you all, and I hope we won't have to see each other

5 again. Okay. We're adjourned.

6 --- Whereupon the Status Conference adjourned

7 at 4.35 p.m.

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