Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 61

1 Thursday, 17 March 2005

2 [Status Conference]

3 [Open session]

4 [The accused entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 4.04 p.m.

6 JUDGE POCAR: Good afternoon to everybody. This is the Status

7 Conference in the case number IT-98-34-A, the Prosecutor versus Mladen

8 Naletilic, aka Tuta, and Vinko Martinovic, aka Stela.

9 Let me call for the appearances for the Prosecutor.

10 MS. KIND: Good afternoon, Your Honour. Appearing for the

11 Prosecution today is myself, Marie-Ursula Kind, with senior Appeals

12 counsel, Norman Farrell, and Ms. Lourdes Galicia.

13 JUDGE POCAR: For Mr. Martinovic.

14 MR. PAR: [Interpretation] Good day, Your Honour. My name is

15 Zelimir Par, and I am accompanied by Kurt Kerns from the United States.

16 JUDGE POCAR: Thank you. For Mr. Naletilic.

17 MR. HENNESSY: Good afternoon, Your Honour. Matt Hennessy and

18 Chris Meek for the accused Mladen Naletilic.

19 JUDGE POCAR: I thank you.

20 Is everybody hearing the proceedings in a language they

21 understand? Are the accused able to follow the proceedings? Yes. Fine.

22 The last Status Conference we had in this case was held on the

23 23rd of November, 2004. The parties are certainly aware of the purposes

24 of the Status Conference.

25 First, may I inquire whether -- with the appellants, whether there

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1 are any concerns relating to the appeal, the detention conditions that

2 they want to raise in this Status Conference?

3 MR. PAR: [Interpretation] Your Honour, my client has asked me to

4 raise a few issues that concern his health. With your leave, should I

5 address this issue immediately or do you think it would be better to

6 address the issue a little later?

7 JUDGE POCAR: As you wish. We can do it immediately, but I don't

8 know whether we have to go into private session for that. It's up to you.

9 You should appreciate whether we have to go into private session or not.

10 MR. PAR: [Interpretation] I think we can remain in open session.

11 JUDGE POCAR: Okay. So you can proceed.

12 MR. PAR: [Interpretation] As far as the health of my client is

13 concerned, it has to do with an operation of the knee that he had about a

14 year ago. Vinko Martinovic was operated in the detention clinic, and his

15 health condition didn't improve after the operation. On the contrary. It

16 deteriorated. So his knee isn't functioning properly. It's difficult for

17 him to move. He feels pain. He can't sit down, et cetera. For this

18 reason he contacted the detention doctors on a number occasions and

19 requested further treatment, but he was told that he could not be helped.

20 We established that it was -- the arthritis of the knee can be treated

21 with pain-killers or appropriate treatment. Since such treatment wasn't

22 provided for him in Detention Unit, we would be grateful if the Chamber

23 could issue an order for a new examination to be conducted by a specialist

24 so that the adequate form of treatment could be provided for our client.

25 Similarly, Vinko Martinovic asked me to say that his general

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1 health is poor, and for an unknown reason in the last year or so he's lost

2 almost all his teeth. He fears that it might be some sort of a disease,

3 and for this reason he has requested that a general examination be

4 performed to establish his health condition.

5 If the Chamber may do so, could the Chamber issue an order to the

6 Detention Unit so that the health problems that my client has can be

7 resolved as soon as possible or, rather, immediately. Thank you.

8 JUDGE POCAR: Mr. Par, before going to -- to orders of the Court

9 that you are requesting, has your client followed entirely all the

10 procedures as established in the Rules governing the detention of persons

11 awaiting trial or not? He's taken all the steps taken by the Rules or

12 not?

13 MR. PAR: [Interpretation] As far as I'm aware, yes. If this means

14 that he requested such treatment in the appropriate manner, if this means

15 that he informed them about the difficulties that he had, I think that he

16 has followed this procedure to no effect, and as a result he's asked me to

17 address the Chamber about the matter.

18 JUDGE POCAR: Okay. In that -- in that case, if that is correct,

19 I will myself make some inquiries and see whether we have to do anything

20 in that respect, but I have to tell you that there is a complaint

21 procedure that has to be followed, and if the complaint procedure has not

22 been followed properly, there is very little that the Appeals Bench can do

23 in the situation. So check yourself whether any steps have been a made to

24 complain about the treatment that according to which your client has not

25 been proper.

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1 Any other matter to be raised in --

2 MR. PAR: [Interpretation] Thank you.

3 JUDGE POCAR: -- in this context.

4 MR. HENNESSY: Matt Hennessy for Mr. Naletilic. After eight years

5 and one day of continuous incarceration in one place or another,

6 Mr. Naletilic is in surprisingly good health. So as to his health, that's

7 all we have.

8 JUDGE POCAR: I thank you. So if there is no other matter to be

9 raised in this -- in relation to the detention of the two appellants,

10 let's come to the status appeal before the Appeals Chamber.

11 I note that yesterday, I think on the 16th of March, yes, the

12 Prosecution has submitted its sixth status report, which is of course

13 known to the appellants, about -- and gives information about the

14 disclosure of material from Prosecution to the Defence. I understand that

15 a group of 65 binders of materials has been made available to the Defence,

16 and the Defence, according to the status report, has been able to review

17 this material, but I will inquire with the Defence whether it is correct.

18 I understand also there is other material that has come into the

19 possession of the Prosecution later, and that material is under review at

20 the moment. All material is in B/C/S language, I understand. And at the

21 moment, the Prosecution notifies that it will be able to implement all its

22 disclosure obligations by mid-April. Is that correct? By 15th of April,

23 2005, unless for technical reasons some more time is require. I mean,

24 redactions and other things. So with a caveat that time may not be

25 necessary -- will not be enough, as I understand it.

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1 Now, I want to be clear as this is the assessment - I just tried

2 to summarise it - by the Prosecution. Has the Defence to say anything in

3 this respect?

4 Mr. Par.

5 MR. PAR: [Interpretation] Your Honour, it's correct that we have

6 had the possibility to review the 65 binders, which we have done. As far

7 as the other material is concerned, we are waiting for the Prosecution to

8 comply with its obligations just as it did on the previous occasion.

9 Thank you.

10 JUDGE POCAR: Mr. Hennessy, do you want to add anything?

11 MR. HENNESSY: Well, just to reiterate what Mr. Par said. We've

12 had access to the documents that they've already released. We look

13 forward to the additional disclosures by April 15. On top of that, and I

14 think we discussed this last time we were here in November, and I'm not

15 sure whether the documents that we've seen in these 45 or, excuse me, 65

16 binders plus the additional materials that we're looking forward to are

17 the same or different than documents that we are aware are now available

18 to us in the archive in Zagreb, HVO documents. My belief is that they're

19 different documents, and I only inform the Court of this to let you know

20 that we're having some difficulty securing an investigator who meets with

21 both the approval of the Defence and with the Registry for purposes of

22 payment. So we look forward to the Prosecution's disclosure on top of

23 that where we're actively investigating ourselves materials -- well,

24 trying to investigate materials in the Zagreb archives. So with that,

25 that's all I have as to any new disclosure documents.

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1 JUDGE POCAR: Thank you. Is the Prosecution in a position to

2 clarify the situation of the documents that the questions have been raised

3 by Mr. Hennessy?

4 MS. KIND: Yes, Your Honour. With regard to the 45 binders, those

5 are copies of material that is available in the archive, but of course

6 there may be other material that is interesting for the Defence to review.

7 I hope that answers your question, Your Honour.

8 JUDGE POCAR: So you mean besides -- in addition to the documents

9 you have made available to the Defence.

10 MS. KIND: Yes, Your Honour. I'm sorry. The 45 binders we have

11 made available on the premises of the Prosecution's office. However,

12 obviously, in the archive there is -- there are copies of these 45

13 binders, the material in there, but other material in the archives that

14 the Defence may want to review.

15 JUDGE POCAR: I see. Well, as the parties may imagine, this --

16 the Bench would like to speed up the appeal as much as possible, so --

17 but, of course, this has to be done respecting the principles of a fair

18 appeal. If material is available and may assist the Defence, there is no

19 intention doing away with the material and not allowing the time to

20 consider it.

21 I only would like to urge both parties to proceed as speedily as

22 possible in this matter. So the Prosecution to complete the disclosure,

23 the consideration, the examination of the documents and their disclosure

24 as quickly as possible, and the Defence, on their part, to take action on

25 the basis of these documents as quickly as possible in order not to

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1 prolong this appeal unduly, which may of course be detrimental also for

2 the appellants who are entitled to come to a conclusion of their procedure

3 as soon as possible.

4 Well, there is another matter I want to raise. That's the

5 question of the -- of the decision that was taken -- given to the parties

6 to file public versions of the pleadings with the International Tribunal.

7 So far, we only received the Prosecution filing on 4 March 2005, whereby

8 the Prosecution has lifted the confidential status of its book of

9 authorities.

10 There are still a number of pleadings that are filed as

11 confidential and should be filed as public documents. There is the appeal

12 brief of Mr. Martinovic, the Naletilic brief on appeal, the Naletilic

13 revised brief on appeal, the Prosecution response brief to Naletilic

14 appeal brief, and the Naletilic reply to the Prosecution's response to the

15 Naletilic appeal. So I would urge the parties to proceed to file public

16 versions of these pleadings as soon as possible. That, of course, I

17 understand there will be need to make some redactions in the document, but

18 as soon as this can be done, I would prefer to have the documents filed

19 publicly as soon as possible.

20 May I request the parties if they have to make redactions in the

21 documents to try not to alter the sequence of paragraphs and footnotes

22 when filing the documents publicly, because we already -- the Bench

23 already worked on the confidential documents. If the -- all the format is

24 changed, we will have to restart checking what is in and what is not in

25 and it may be more difficult for us. It's additional work for the Bench

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1 and the legal officers working on the case.

2 Well, I do not think we have other -- of course there are motions

3 still pending. This is known to the parties. In particular, there is

4 still pending motions on -- based on Rule 115. The Appeals Chamber will

5 come with a decision on these motions as soon as possible, of course.

6 Well, this is all what I wanted to raise unless the parties want

7 to raise other matters.

8 MR. HENNESSY: If I may speak, we have nothing more, Your Honour.

9 JUDGE POCAR: Yes, Mr. Hennessy.

10 MR. HENNESSY: We have nothing more, Your Honour.

11 MR. KERNS: On behalf of Mr. Martinovic, we don't have anything

12 either, Your Honour, and we'll make sure to get this redaction issue taken

13 care of forthwith. Thank you.

14 JUDGE POCAR: Thank you. Does the Prosecution want to raise any

15 other issue.

16 MS. KIND: Thank you, Your Honour. No, we have nothing further to

17 raise, and we're working on the redactions. We anticipate to file the

18 response briefs, both of them either tomorrow or on Monday.

19 JUDGE POCAR: Thank you. Well, then I hope that we -- the parties

20 will be able -- well, the Prosecution, first, will be able to finish with

21 disclosure as soon as possible, and then that the Defence may be able to

22 come with motions, if necessary, as quickly as possible after the

23 disclosure has been ended, because, if possible, it would be the intention

24 of the Bench to try to set -- to schedule the appeals hearings before the

25 summer recess. If you can do it, of course, depending on the disclosure.

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1 But if the disclosure will finish by mid-April, perhaps this may be --

2 this may be possible.

3 Well, if there is no other issue to be raised, I think we can

4 conclude this Status Conference.

5 The Status Conference is adjourned.

6 --- Whereupon the Status Conference adjourned

7 at 4.25 p.m.

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