ICTY Weekly Press Briefing - 14th Mar 2007

ICTY Weekly Press Briefing

Date: 14.03.2007

Time: 12:00

Registry and Chambers:

Refik Hodzic, Spokesman for Registry and Chambers, made the following statement:

I would like to start by commenting on the special supplement titled "Licna karta Srebrenice" in the Monday issue of the Belgrade-based Glas Javnosti newspaper, written by Milivoje Ivanisevic. The introductory part of the supplement states that Mister Ivanisevic's "investigative review" takes side with the view which denies genocide, and that it can serve as a contribution to the possible debate on the genocide committed in Srebrenica.

Without going to details of the article, I would like to state that the piece in question represents shameful denial and relativisation of the facts that this court has established beyond reasonable doubt about the genocide committed in Srebrenica. International Court of Justice confirmed that genocide was committed in Srebrenica, but the facts about the genocide were established first in the judgements by the Tribunal's Trial and Appeals Chambers in the case against Radislav Krstc. The ICTY wishes to condemn this as well as other recent attempts to deny the genocide committed in Srebrenica, in which more than 7000 men and boys were executed. I strongly recommend that anyone wishing to debate about the events in Srebrenica starts by reading the judgements of this court, which established facts after careful weighing of evidence produced by years of investigations, thousands of exhibits, testimonies of both survivors and perpetrators, all fully tested and confirmed by a neutral international court.

SCHEDULE:

The closing arguments for the case against Mrksic et al. will begin this afternoon through Friday at 2:15 in courtroom I. As you may recall, the trial began on 11 October 2005 and 52 witnesses were called by the Prosecution and 36 for the defence.

Next week, several status conferences will be held: on Wednesday 21 March, at 14:15 in courtroom II in the Boskoski and Tarculovski case and at 10:00 in courtroom II in the Stanisic and Simatovic case; on Friday 23 March, at 14:30 in courtroom III in the Trbic case and at 10:00 in courtroom II in the Limaj et al. case.

Also next week, the Prosecution is expected to conclude its case in the Milutinovic et al. case on Friday, 23 March. The trial against the six former high-level political and military leaders of Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) began on 10 July 2006.

And finally, the trials for Popovic et al., Prlic et al., Milutinovic et al. and Haradinaj et al. will continue to sit next week. Please check our website regularly for changes in the court schedule.

TODAY’S FILINGS:

The Trial Chamber granted today the defence request for certification to appeal the decision on conflict of interest of attorney Miroslav Separovic. Last week, the Trial Chamber affirmed its previous decision determining Separovic was in conflict of interest and no longer eligible to represent the accused Markac, ordering that Markac immediately engage new counsel. The defence for Markac requested the certification to appeal on 12 March 2007.

Office of the Prosecutor:

Olga Kavran, Spokesperson for the Prosecutor made the following statement:

In regards to the comment made by Refik Hodzic on the special supplement issued in the Belgrade newspaper on Monday, on behalf of the Prosecutor, I would like to say that she absolutely concurs with this statement. To this she would like to add the following:

On 26 February 2007, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued its landmark decision in Bosnia's civil suit against Serbia. This was the first time the Court has found any state liable under the Genocide Convention. Specifically, the ICJ found that Serbia violated its obligation to prevent the genocide in Srebrenica and punish its perpetrators. And, specifically, in the language of the Court, "Serbia has violated its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide by having failed to transfer Ratko Mladic, indicted for genocide and complicity in genocide, for trial by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and thus having failed fully to co-operate with that Tribunal."

And yet, the Prosecutor was very surprised to see that the response of the international community - and especially the Presidency of the European Union - to this ruling appears to be quite muted.

Following the decision, Javier Solana, EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, issued a statement that made no mention whatsoever of the fact that Serbia was found in violation of the Genocide Convention. Instead, he applauded the fact that "there is no collective punishment" and that "the highest tribunal in the world has closed that page". The German Presidency of the EU issued a similar statement saying that it "hopes the ICJ Judgement will help close a painful chapter in the history of the region". Again, there was no mention of the violation of the Genocide Convention, no mention of the arrest of Ratko Mladic.

This is truly a potentially devastating development. Given the Tribunal's Completion Strategy and the ever increasing pressure on the ICTY to close its doors by the end of 2010, the Prosecutor is worried that we may never see Mladic and Karadzic in our custody. That would have a devastating impact on international justice and our battle against impunity.

Questions:

Asked about Seselj’s alleged liver cancer, Hodzic replied that we heard Mr. Seselj speak about this subject in the courtroom during the status conference yesterday. He said that what he could say without going into details, since it is not an ICTY practice to discuss issues related to the health of the accused, was just to clarify. He continued to say that tests done by MRI and subsequent blood tests have shown that Mr. Seselj has no cancerous tumors and or other pathological problems on the liver. The tests exclude any possibility of cancer and no abnormality has been detected in the liver function of Mr. Seselj.

Asked whether Ms. Kavran has anything new to say about the problem with witnesses in the Haradinaj case, Ms. Kavran answered that she was not aware of any new developments.

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