Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 4484

1 Friday, 24 November 2006

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 [The witness enters court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 10.45 a.m.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: So good morning. The reason why we are starting

7 late is well known to you already because we had a Status Conference in

8 another case. Everyone is here except Mr. Bourgon, Mr. McCloskey.

9 Yes. Mr. Ostojic was still in possession of the floor. He hadn't

10 finished his cross-examination.

11 WITNESS: WITNESS PW-132 [Resumed]

12 [Witness answered through interpreter]

13 JUDGE AGIUS: Good morning, to you, sir. We are proceeding with

14 the cross-examinations today. I don't know quite whether we will finish,

15 but -- yes, Mr. Thayer.

16 MR. THAYER: Mr. President, good morning. Good morning,

17 Your Honours.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: Good morning.

19 MR. THAYER: If I may just try to get some estimate and

20 perhaps --

21 JUDGE AGIUS: Fair enough.

22 MR. THAYER: -- just provide some guidance with what we hope to

23 accomplish today. I've polled my learned colleagues and I think there

24 will be approximately two and a half to two and three-quarters hours of

25 cross-examination still to go with this witness. So the first item is, I

Page 4485

1 think we may be able to finish if we go to the usual closing time, plus

2 maybe 20 minutes, as Your Honour had offered previously, in order to get

3 this witness home.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: Let's see how we go, because again, for example, I

5 mean Mr. Ostojic had required initially 45, but when he said that he

6 needed more, we did not stop him. And likewise, we will treat the other

7 Defence teams with this witness. So you never know exactly how. We will

8 try.

9 MR. THAYER: Understood, Your Honour.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: We've lost three-quarters -- no. We've lost a

11 session.

12 MR. THAYER: The second part is, Your Honour, we do have the next

13 witness on deck, but given even the most optimistic estimates, I would

14 request leave to release that witness.

15 [Trial Chamber confers]

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. I think you can safely send him to his hotel.

17 MR. THAYER: Thank you, Mr. President.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you. So, Mr. Ostojic.

19 Good morning to you, sir, as I said, we are continuing with the

20 cross-examinations.

21 If you can make an effort to finish by 2.45 -- by 1.45, I think we

22 will appreciate that.

23 Yes, Mr. Ostojic.

24 MR. OSTOJIC: Good morning, Mr. President, Your Honours.

25 Your Honour, I don't have any further questions I would like the

Page 4486

1 opportunity to discuss with the Court in the absence of the witness, not

2 today, but the difference between, obviously with all due respect to the

3 Court, speculation and what reasonable inferences are and I'd like to come

4 back to my questions because I have the similar-type questions with other

5 witnesses and with the most respect to the Court I think there is a big

6 difference when we discuss things that are speculative such as possible

7 and those things that are reasonable inferences. But at this time, given

8 the Court's statements yesterday I have no further questions of this

9 witness.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: We need to distinguish inferences made by you and

11 inferences that you expect the witness to make and that's a basic

12 difference.

13 So who is next? Ms. Nikolic. You had indicated initially about

14 20 minutes.

15 MS. NIKOLIC: [Interpretation] Yes, sir.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Go ahead.

17 MS. NIKOLIC: [Interpretation] Thank you.

18 Cross-examination by Ms. Nikolic:

19 Q. [Interpretation] Good morning, sir.

20 A. Good morning.

21 Q. I would like to ask you a few questions of a general nature with

22 regard to the identification of the participants in conversations, the

23 questions that have remained unanswered so far. Yesterday you spoke in

24 great detail on page 67 of the transcript as well as on 21st November on

25 page 56, you spoke about the moment when the participants in a

Page 4487

1 conversation are identified. I'm trying to understand the principle. You

2 explained in great detail -- based on Exhibit 1164, the Prosecutor's

3 exhibit, you explained that when you reached a certain part in the

4 conversation in which a person who had already introduced themselves and

5 who had already been identified and when that person speaks to person X

6 and the person who has agreed to the contents of the conversation, and

7 based on who asked for that participant you tried to establish a link

8 between the participants. I'm trying to be here clear; however, I wasn't

9 clear on what you said that's why my proposal or my statement is so

10 ambiguous. Can you explain?

11 A. Yes, you're right. All the time we are talking about the ways a

12 -- participants can introduce themselves and there is a participant being

13 introduced by somebody else. I don't know if there are any other such

14 examples. However, those who monitored my work have accepted that such a

15 way can be accepted and they had taken the material into account as being

16 correct. And I'm going to tell you why and I'm going to explain the way

17 we worked.

18 First of all, we never knew what kinds of controls we had within

19 our service, and those controls and checks could be carried out at any

20 moment, at any place, and I never knew when and where, which means that it

21 was always desirable and we always expected from somebody else to have the

22 same document, and then we would make a puzzle of all these documents. We

23 did that. And if something was found to be unacceptable and which could

24 not be accepted then we had the rest of the material that could be built

25 up on the material that we had.

Page 4488

1 Q. Can the witness please be shown Exhibit P1161A in English, B,

2 B/C/S version, and can we please go into private session because of a

3 possibility that my next set of questions will reveal the witness's

4 identity.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Let's go into private session. One moment,

6 Ms. Nikolic.

7 [Private session]

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14 [Open session]

15 MS. FAUVEAU: [No interpretation]

16 JUDGE AGIUS: I think so.

17 MS. FAUVEAU: [Interpretation] I think there's been a translation

18 problem.

19 I have no objection if this document is admitted for a limited

20 scope, but I have an objection if the document is for the content of the

21 conversation contained in the document.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: That is another matter. That is another matter.

23 Let's look at the document itself.

24 If there are no objections. Do I take it that this -- the

25 registrar will proceed to admit -- to order the admitting of these

Page 4550

1 documents? Mr. Zivanovic?

2 MR. ZIVANOVIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour. We would

3 like to say that we will have a reservation with regarding the

4 acceptability of all the intercepts in general terms. I only wish to

5 remind you of that.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: Sorry. Ms. Nikolic.

7 MS. NIKOLIC: [Interpretation] As far as the list is concerned, I

8 believe that the list contains the entire notebook number 9 with all the

9 intercepts, if I'm not mistaken. They have not been translated into

10 English save for those which are pertinent to this witness and some other

11 witnesses that will accompany the testimony of each of the witnesses that

12 are upcoming. In that sense, I don't see the relevance of the complete

13 set of notebooks where intercepts were recorded, because for every witness

14 and for every operative there will be intercepts in English to accompany

15 their respective testimonies.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, Mr. Thayer.

17 MR. THAYER: Yes, Mr. President. With respect to that point, it

18 is our intention to offer the -- well, the translation of the relevant

19 portion but, in addition, the physical notebook itself. As we've already

20 seen, these witnesses are being shown these notebooks. They are leafing

21 through them. There are pages and markings that have been identified

22 throughout them, and out of an abundance of caution we would offer the

23 actual physical notebook in addition to the translations of those

24 relevance portions, those intercepts that have been in offer.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. But I think we need also to make our

Page 4551

1 verifications particularly as to which of these documents need to be under

2 seal.

3 MR. THAYER: And that was --

4 JUDGE AGIUS: So our suggestion is that we'll all take our time to

5 go through this, also the Defence exhibits, and we'll revisit this first

6 thing Monday morning when we resume, and we will finalise the process of

7 tendering these documents on Monday.

8 So I thank you. I wish to thank not only all of you for your

9 cooperation but -- and in particular the -- all the staff for having

10 been very, very understanding and very cooperative with us. Thank you

11 so much.

12 We'll all meet on Monday morning at 9.00 in this same courtroom.

13 Thank you. Next week it will always be in the morning, and there will be

14 no sitting on Friday, as you know. Thank you.

15 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 2.19 p.m.,

16 to be reconvened on Monday, the 27th day

17 of November, 2006, at 9.00 a.m.

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