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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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