ICTY Weekly Press Briefing - 31st May 2006

Please note that this
is not a verbatim transcript of the Press
Briefing. It is merely a summary.

Date:
31.05.2006

Time: 12:00

Registry
and Chambers:

Christian Chartier, Senior Information
Officer, made the following statement:

As you all know by now,
the Tribunal released earlier today the
report of the internal inquiry panel
concerning the circumstances surrounding
the death of Slobodan Milosevic on 11
March 2006.

Headed by Tribunal's
Vice-President, Judge Kevin Parker, the
panel conducted an extremely thorough
inquiry, including but not limited to
statements and reports received from
more than 60 persons. Their final report
is detailed and comprehensive.

It confirms that Slobodan
Milosevic was not poisoned, was not murdered
and did not commit suicide.

Most importantly, it
demonstrates that the Tribunal provided
the accused, from his arrival to his
death and throughout his detention, with
professional medical care of high-standard.
The Trial Chamber was also very flexible
in adapting the trial’s schedule
to the defendant’s health situation.
Those two elements illustrate that the
Tribunal has been constantly sensitive
to the health condition and requirements
of the accused.

At the same time, in
striving to ensure a fair trial by enabling
the accused to properly conduct his own
Defence, the Tribunal provided Slobodan
Milosevic with unique facilities and
detention arrangements. These arrangements
inadvertently allowed Slobodan Milosevic
to obtain, and to take in, a number of
medications not prescribed by treating
doctors, thus putting himself at a higher
risk than he already was. In addition
to self-medicating, the accused refused
on occasions to be tested or refused
to be taken to the hospital.

Slobodan Milosevic died
of natural causes from a heart attack,
on 11 March 2006.

Another press release
was issued this morning about a visit
to the Detention Unit by The Minister
of Foreign Affairs of the Former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Ilinka
Mitreva. More specifically, she visited
Ljube Boskoski, the former Minister of
the Interior of FYROM, who is charged
with command responsibility for the attack
on the village of Ljuboten.

Yesterday, the Judges
of the Tribunal held an Extraordinary
Plenary Session at which they discussed
ways to better organize the pre-trial
and trials proceedings in order to adjudicate
cases more expeditiously. A number of
changes to the Rules are anticipated.
They will be announced in due course.

Next week, the President
of the Tribunal, Judge Fausto Pocar,
and the Prosecutor, Carla del Ponte,
will address the Security Council on
the progresses made in implementing the
completion strategy. Their appearance
is scheduled in the morning of Wednesday
7 June, at around 10a.m. New York time.

Finally, the Registrar,
Hans Holthuis, wishes to express his
concern at an incident in Kosovo last
Thursday in which members of a defence
team representing the former Yugoslav
Army Chief-of-Staff, Dragoljub Ojdanjic,
were prevented from carrying out their
independent enquiries. Ojdanjic is indicted
by the Tribunal for war crimes against
Kosovar Albanians during 1999 and his
trial in The Hague is due to commence
10 July.

While travelling in
an UNMIK-supported convoy to the village
of Kruse e vogel or Mala Krusa in south-west
Kosovo the convoy appears to have been
mistaken by residents for that of a group
of Serb refugees wishing to inspect their
former properties. A clash ensued between
residents and security personnel in the
UNMIK-supported convoy forcing the defence
team to leave the area. More than 20
persons, including a language assistant,
were reported injured in the incident.

The Registrar recognizes
the gravity of the crimes alleged by
the Tribunal's prosecution to have occured
in Kruse e vogel or Mala Krusa. Specifically,
it is charged that more than 100 men
and boys were coralled into a house and
shot by Serbian forces before the building
was torched.

The Tribunal is committed
to bringing the perpetrators to justice
and providing justice for the victims
of these and other crimes in Kosovo.
To do so, it is imperative that trials
are fair and that no party, the defence
in this instance, is prevented from carry
out their work.

With regard to the schedule of proceedings
for the days to come, I would like to
point out that an appeals hearing is
scheduled for Blagoje Simic this Friday
from 9:00 to 18:00 in courtroom III.

Also, please note that Monday 5
June 2006 is a holiday and there will
be no court proceedings for this day.

The Vukovar trial
of former Yugoslav Army high-ranking
officers Mile Mrksic, Miroslav Radic
and Veselin Sljivancanin, will continue
this and next week in courtroom I. Tomorrow
it will sit from 9:30 to 16:30, on Friday
from 9:00 to 13:45. Next week it will
sit Tuesday, through Thursday from 9:30
to 16:30 and on Friday from 9:30 to 13:45.

The trial of Momcilo
Krajisnik continues for the rest of this
week at 9:00 in courtroom II. Next week
the proceedings will continue Tuesday
through Thursday in the same courtroom
and Friday in courtroom III at 14:15.

The trial of Milan Martic
will continue for the rest of the week
at 14:15 in courtroom II. Next week the
proceedings will continue Tuesday through
Thursday in the same courtroom and Friday
in courtroom III at 9:00.

The proceedings against
the six accused in the Prlic et al. case
Jadranko Prlic, Bruno Stojic, Slobodan
Praljak, Milivoj Petkovic, Valentin Coric
and Berislav Pusic, former high-ranking
political and military officials of the
then Herceg-Bosna wil continue tomorrow
at 9:00 sitting in courtroom III. There
will be no proceedings for this case
next week.

Office of the
Prosecutor:

Anton Nikiforov,
Advisor to the Prosecutor and acting
Spokesperson of the Office of the Prosecutor,
made no statement.

Questions:

Asked if precautions
were being taken with other accused representing
themselves to prevent this from happening
again, Chartier stated that a number
of steps were recommended by the Milosevic
report.

The report recommended
that Tribunal authorities look into the
detention unit arrangements when an accused
would like to defend himself, and basically
said that no such regime should be applied
again.

Chartier said the
gist was that a better balance must be
struck between the principes of ensuring
fair trials and allowing accused to defend
themselves, and not compromising the
security of the detention unit.

Asked if Seselj
would have the same rights as Milosevic,
Chartier said that he was not aware of
any such order made by the Trial Chamber.

Asked would there
be a follow up inquiry to find out who
brought in the medications for Milosevic,
Chartier said that he did not expect
so because the report said that no clear
conclusion could be drawn. The fact of
the matter was that a number of medications
not prescribed, Rifampicine being only
one of many, had been smuggled into the
detention unit, said Chartier. The report
indicated a number of theories in this
regard such as pills or whatever being
hidden in boxes of documents, bundles
and folders, but also possibily in the
clothing of privileged visitors. Thereby,
indicating that no conclusion could be
drawn. Chartier added that he was confident
that if a conclusion could have been
made then the inquiry panel would have
found it. There would not be any further
inquiry on this, said Chartier.

Asked if the theories
mentioned in the report were based on
specific fact or just speculation, Chartier
answered that the report was not outlined
to speculate but outlined to present
facts. Chartier said the report was self
explanatory giving a huge amount of details,
dates and what had actually been done
and discovered. These were no speculations
but elements clearly stated.

A journalist pointed
out that the death of Milan Babic was
before the death of Milosevic. Asked
when the report on Babic’s death
would be released, Charter said that
the Babic report would come very soon.
Chartier pointed out that the order of
release of the reports had nothing to
do with giving priority to one case over
the other. It had to do with the fact
that a report by the Dutch prosecutor
just came in last week on Babic’s
death. As this report had to be considered
by the inquiry panel the panel could
not finalize their report before receiving
this document. Chartier said that the
panel was in the final stage of the reporting
exercise.

Asked if the reporting
of incidents to the Deputy Registrar
by the Commanding Officer of the Detention
Unit regarding Milosevic in August 2004
and December 2005 resulted in measures
being taken, Chartier said that yes measures
had been taken. Chartier said that one
measure was to monitor the accused more
closely and one other had been the conducting
of medical tests. Another example was
a number of memorandums coming from the
Deputy Registrar to the Commanding Officer
of the Detention Unit recommending an
alternative way to implementing the order
setting forth for Milosevic specific
detention arrangements.

Chartier added that
of course now we are now seeing in hindsight
what was happening in 2004. In 2004 and
in the early 2005 the picture was slowly
emerging. At this point in time, the
accused was a sick man with serious cardiac
ailments known to us and the doctors.
There was this ongoing mystery that in
spite of the medications his blood pressure
was not going down. Chartier said that
then the question began to arise of how
this could be possible. There were a
number of specialists outside of The
Hague with expert opinions brought in
for examinations. After a number of examinations,
the accused was normal for a couple of
months again and began his defence case
in 2004. Chartier said he then had abnormal
pattern in blood pressure again and the
medications were adapted and not working.
Chartier said then the question was why
these medications were not working. It
was easy to say now that in October 2004
we should have done something differently,
but this was a progressive picture. It
was only at the end of 2005 and beginning
of 2006 that the picture of the accused
self medicating and according to the
report manipulating medications clearly
appeared.

Asked if any comment
could be made on what President Pocar
and the Prosecutor were going to discuss
at the Security Council meeting next
week, Nikiforov said that he could not
speak for the President and could not
tell in advance about the Prosecutor's
text. The reports had been sent to the
Security Council, the Danish Presidency
of the UNSC have to organise their translation
and distribution to the members of the
Security Council. But all reports will
be made public/ released on 7 June, when
the President and the Prosecutor are
to address the UNSC.

Asked what the main
topic might be in their address, Nikiforov
said that as for the Prosecution the
topics of cooperation of states would
be discussed and also the completion
strategy in terms of making the prosecutions
work more efficient as well as a critical
look at its own work and goals of completion
strategy. Nikiforov reiterated that it
could not be revealed in advance.

Asked if the changes
to the Rules made in the plenary session
yesterday would be included in the President’s
address to the Security Council, Chartier
said that they could not be included
at this stage because they were not formally
adopted. However, Chartier said that
it was expected that these changes would
be finalized and announced before the
President’s address.

A journalist referenced
a Serbian Media report from last week
stating that the prosecution has representatives
looking into the archives in Serbia.
Asked if this could be confirmed, Nikiforov
confirmed this stating that this was
OTP’s first mission to archives
in Belgrade. Nikiforov said that the
mission was in the second week and it
was not finished assuring that there
woul be more missions. So far what could
be said, without going into details,
was that the mission was going well and
well received in different locations,
but it is yet to be fully tested, said
Nikiforov. Once there were some physical
results from this mission then it could
be said how it went on this mission.

Asked if this was
consolation for not getting Mladic, Nikiforov
said that it was not, but he assured
that the Prosecutor’s speech would
be quite open on efforts on Mladic and
fugitives.

Asked what day the
incident in Kosovo took place and what
was the name of those involved, Chartier
answered that it happened on Thursday
and he did not have the names of the
people involved, but that he would find
out the answer for the journalist.

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