Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

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1 Tuesday, 17th February 1998

2 MOTION HEARING

3 (4.00 pm)

4 JUDGE JORDA: Does everybody hear? Are the

5 interpreters ready? Yes? Would one of the

6 representatives of the Office of the Prosecutor like to

7 speak? You filed a motion on 17th February 1998, that

8 is today for -- concerning the two accused in this

9 trial. This is a request for protection of victims and

10 witnesses.

11 First of all, was this motion given to the

12 Defence?

13 MS PATERSON: Yes, Mr President, we provided

14 a copy prior to the appearance today.

15 JUDGE JORDA: We are now going to hear any

16 comments that are to be made on the motion, anything

17 that you would like to say, and then anything that the

18 Defence would like to comment on, and then we can take

19 our decision.

20 Ms Paterson, you may proceed.

21 MS PATERSON: Thank you Mr President.

22 I believe that the motion speaks basically for itself,

23 and I would just bring the court's attention to

24 paragraph 2 in which we explain that because of a prior

25 incident that we have already experienced with

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1 defendant Tadic in regard to confidentiality of

2 information regarding the identity of witnesses, we had

3 special concerns that similar confidentiality issues

4 might arise during the course of this proceeding so we

5 wanted to bring this motion to the court and have the

6 order hopefully granted from the very first day of the

7 proceedings so that we can be confident that all the

8 documents we provide to the Defence will be kept

9 strictly confidential and will not be release the

10 outside the needs of the defence team.

11 I have no further comments.

12 JUDGE JORDA: Perhaps you would not like to

13 refer to this in public. Is there any kind of

14 relationship, family relationship, since you mentioned

15 the Dusan Tadic trial is there any family relationship

16 here or not?

17 MR PISAREVIC: Mr President, there is no

18 blood relation between Mr Dusan Tadic and Mr Miroslav

19 Tadic. Thank you.

20 JUDGE JORDA: Ms Paterson, without

21 disclosing confidential things, could you tell us what

22 kind of incident has led you to present this kind of

23 a broad request, as you have done today?

24 MS PATERSON: Yes, Mr President. As

25 I explained in the motion I provided to the court, and

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1 as Mr Tadic himself made some reference to, back in

2 1996 the defendant, Mr Tadic, contacted the Office of

3 the Prosecutor by telephone, and with his counsel's

4 permission we had a series of two or three telephone

5 conversations concerning the charges against him and

6 various other related matters, and in the course of one

7 of those conversations Mr Tadic informed us that he had

8 in his possession a copy of a witness statement that

9 the Office of the Prosecutor had made available to the

10 Defence in the case of Dusan Tadic, and how that came

11 into Mr Tadic's possession was of interest to us. We

12 requested of the defendant and his attorney to explain

13 to us how they came into possession of that statement,

14 which they have refused to do, and needless to say, we

15 found that incident disturbing, not only because it

16 involves a potential witness in this case, but it also

17 obviously reflects that the confidentiality was not

18 maintained in the Tadic case either, and because we

19 have had this prior incident, we felt it was important

20 to make it clear immediately to the defendant that such

21 an incident will not be acceptable in the future in

22 this case, and that the confidentiality of all the

23 disclosure material must be respected by all parties in

24 the proceedings here before the court.

25 JUDGE JORDA: Thank you.

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1 Does the Defence wish to comment?

2 MR PISAREVIC: Yes. Thank you, your Honour,

3 for giving us an opportunity to explain this situation

4 regarding the motion by the Prosecution. We are from

5 Samac. In the case against Mr Dusan Tadic witnesses

6 appeared who are also from Samac and otherwise the

7 trial of Dusan Tadic brought to our -- was -- brought

8 some curiosity out to the people of the Republika

9 Srpska and to the citizens of Samac, so we followed it

10 very carefully, and I can tell you that we have

11 actually taped all proceedings, because the BH

12 television did carry it live.

13 We do not know who are the witnesses in our

14 case, but we know who the witnesses are in the Dusan

15 Tadic case, especially Sulejman Tihic and Dragan Lukac

16 and what they said. Several books by Mr Dragan Lukac

17 were published and we have all read them so it is no

18 secret what the witness Lukic stated. We know this, we

19 have it in writing, we have transcribed the tape. If

20 this transcript coincided with the statement that the

21 Prosecution has, we do not know whether this is

22 verbatim or not, but we have spoken to the Office of

23 the Prosecutor since 1996, so we do not see in what way

24 the confusion -- confidentiality may have been breached

25 or the witnesses threatened.

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1 Whatever was said in the book, "Samac City

2 Concentration Camp", was repeated by him here in this

3 courtroom. We therefore submit that this request by

4 the Prosecution needs to be rejected, because it really

5 has no purpose.

6 We know, if these people are also witnesses

7 in our case, we expect them to say the same thing. So,

8 I believe that you understand why we watched the

9 proceedings in that trial so carefully. That is all

10 I have to say. Thank you.

11 JUDGE JORDA: If there are no further

12 comments, the Trial Chamber will withdraw until 4.30 to

13 deliberate and we will resume at that point.

14 (4.15 pm)

15 (Short break)

16 (4.42 pm)

17 JUDGE JORDA: We will now resume the

18 hearing. Everyone be seated, please.

19 The Trial Chamber will now rule on the

20 Prosecutor's motion presented today, and will order

21 that the Prosecutor, the accused, their representatives

22 and counsel do not disclose to the media the identity

23 of the witnesses whose names might be mentioned, and

24 will go back to what was done in other cases, that is

25 orders the Prosecutor and the Defence to keep a record

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1 with all of the names and professions of each of the

2 persons who will be called as witnesses as well as the

3 dates, and will submit that to the Trial Chamber each

4 time it asks for it, and do not look for it,

5 Mr Registrar, it is being drafted now, and will be

6 signed tomorrow but I wanted you to give you the answer

7 immediately in agreement with my colleague

8 Judge Rodrigues, and then, of course, as we did in

9 other cases we order that the Prosecutor and the

10 Defence instruct those persons who receive copies of

11 the statements not to reproduce them under pain of

12 being held in contempt of the Tribunal, and it will

13 give them back as soon as it can.

14 I would like to give two reasons for what we

15 are saying.

16 This is not only for the same reasons that

17 the Prosecutor gave, but the Trial Chamber does say

18 that it is true that there is a probability of

19 disclosure that could be drawn from the incident that

20 took place in the Dusan Tadic case, but that in and of

21 themselves, these elements do not justify it, as the

22 Defence would not have justified measures at this time,

23 since the reasons are public, but the Trial Chamber

24 does find, in support of its decision, since it does

25 not have a police force, it finds that the legal

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1 framework for protection of witnesses can be found in

2 Article 22 of the Statute of the Tribunal and lastly

3 the Trial Chamber considers that these measures apply

4 to the Defence but also to the Prosecutor.

5 The decision will be in a publishable form

6 tomorrow morning. We will now adjourn the hearing.

7 (4.45 pm)

8 (Hearing adjourned)

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