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Please note
that this is not a verbatim transcript of the Press Briefing. It is merely
a summary
ICTY
Weekly Press Briefing
Date:
7 June 2000
Time: 12:00 p.m.
REGISTRY
AND CHAMBERS
Jim Landale,
Spokesman for Registry and Chambers made the following statement:
Firstly,
the President of the Tribunal, Judge Claude Jorda, and the Registrar of the
Tribunal, Mrs. Dorothee De Sampayo, will be meeting with the Croatian Justice
Minister, Mr. Ivanisevic this afternoon. They are expected to discuss issues
of cooperation between Croatia and the Tribunal.
There
will be a media opportunity at approximately 1630 hours after the Minister’s
meeting with the Prosecutor.
Milan
Simic is due to travel to the Republika Srpska today for his provisional release
that was ordered by Trial Chamber III on 29 May of this year.
A
few reminders:
There
will be a motion hearing on provisional release in the Galic case tomorrow at
1600 hours. This had been originally scheduled for 18 May, but was postponed.
The
Tribunal will be on holiday next Monday 12 June.
The
Foca trial will resume on Tuesday 13 June.
OFFICE
OF THE PROSECUTOR
Graham Blewitt, Deputy Prosecutor made no statement.
QUESTIONS:
Asked
for the Office of the Prosecutor’s (OTP) comments on the Amnesty International
report concerning the NATO bombing campaign, Blewitt replied that prior
to the Prosecutor’s announcement on Friday to the Security Council, she
had reached the conclusion that there was no basis to commence an investigation.
The OTP had considered all complaints, allegations and evidence in order
to come to that conclusion and the OTP was aware of the existence and contents
of the Amnesty report. Amnesty’s position had been taken into consideration
by the Prosecutor. Not withstanding that, she was of the view that there
was no sufficient basis to commence an investigation into NATO or NATO personnel
rising out of the air campaign against Yugoslavia last year, he concluded.
Asked
how, in light of the Amnesty report’s two main conclusions concerning deliberate
attacks on civilians and negligence, the OTP had come to an opposing conclusion,
Blewitt replied that he could not go into any detail on this issue at this
time and that it would be made clear when the report was made public, hopefully
during the course of next week. The course of action to be taken by the
OTP would be to provide copies of the report to the NATO members in the
first instance. Copies would then be made available to the people making
the complaints and allegations, including Amnesty International. Then the
report would be made available to the public. He added that these incidents
would be addressed in that report. No comments would be made on specific
incidents before the release of the report. In reading the report, in coming
to the conclusion, the OTP was satisfied that there was no deliberate targeting
of any civilians, he concluded.
Asked
how the OTP had come to their conclusion, Blewitt replied that the OTP approached
this case in the same way they approached all other cases. Initially, they
collected all the allegations (many coming from different sources but relating
to the same incident). Following an analysis and collation of the allegations
in order to condense them down into a core body, there was the gathering
of all evidence and information about those particular incidents, which
included the Prosecutor having sought further information from NATO before
an analysis of those facts and application of the applicable law. He concluded
that each set of allegations required different considerations and therefore
it was a matter of receiving the evidence, analysing it and seeing whether
a crime had been committed or should be prosecuted before the Tribunal.
Asked
in which circumstances the Tribunal viewed the use of cluster bombs to be
prohibited and the basis for an indictment, as was the case of the 1995
indictment against Milan Martic, Blewitt replied that there was a huge difference
between the indictment brought against Milan Martic over the Zagreb bombing
in 1995 and the NATO actions against Yugoslavia last year.
He
added that the difference was that it was not so much the use of cluster
bombs that formed the basis of the Martic indictment, rather the means by
which they were being delivered. The evidence held by the OTP indicated
quite clearly that these were weapons that had no particular means of guidance,
they were just pointed at the direction of Zagreb. There was no specific
targeting of military objectives. It was the civilian population of Zagreb
who were targeted in that instance by that indiscriminate weapon. This formed
the basis together with some other considerations of the indictment, he
said.
In
terms of the state of the International Humanitarian Law on cluster bombs,
he believed their use was not prohibited. That being the case, their use
might not constitute an offense over which the Tribunal had jurisdiction.
However, with the developments in international law, this could change in
the future. The current state of the law was that there was no prohibition
on the use of such weapons, therefore it was not an offence. It depended
on the circumstances of their use and in this case the Prosecutor was satisfied
that, where they were used during the NATO campaign, there was a legitimate
military target being targeted. The fact that there were civilian casualties
was not the main purpose of the attacks, he concluded.
He
added that the difference was that it was not so much the use of cluster
bombs that formed the basis of the Martic indictment, rather the means by
which they were being delivered. The evidence held by the OTP indicated
quite clearly that these were weapons that had no particular means of guidance,
they were just pointed at the direction of Zagreb. There was no specific
targeting of military objectives. It was the civilian population of Zagreb
who were targeted in that instance by that indiscriminate weapon. This formed
the basis together with some other considerations of the indictment, he
said.
In
terms of the state of the International Humanitarian Law on cluster bombs,
he believed their use was not prohibited. That being the case, their use
might not constitute an offense over which the Tribunal had jurisdiction.
However, with the developments in international law, this could change in
the future. The current state of the law was that there was no prohibition
on the use of such weapons, therefore it was not an offence. It depended
on the circumstances of their use and in this case the Prosecutor was satisfied
that, where they were used during the NATO campaign, there was a legitimate
military target being targeted. The fact that there were civilian casualties
was not the main purpose of the attacks, he concluded.
Asked
for further clarification on documents received by the OTP from Croatia,
Blewitt replied that during the Prosecutor’s report to the Security Council
last Friday, she reported that in terms of Croatia’s cooperation there had
been very significant steps forward.
He
went on to say that the OTP accepted and agreed that the new Government
in Zagreb was totally committed to cooperating with the Tribunal and that
this had been demonstrated in a number of ways in recent times, including
the surrender of "Tuta", the signing of the agreements establishing
offices in Zagreb, with all of the full privileges and immunities, and allowing
the on site investigations to take place. He added that there were many
areas in which cooperation had improved including the Croatian Government
having acknowledged that the Tribunal had jurisdiction to investigate "Operation
Storm" and similar operations.
The
Deputy Prosecutor pointed out that there remained one important area that
further action had to be taken before the Tribunal could say that there
had been full cooperation and that related to the supply of documents. Following
the proceedings of the Tribunal, it was clear that the Prosecutor had attempted
for some time to obtain documents relating to a number of ongoing trials,
for example Blaskic and Kordic. In that regard, the efforts of the OTP had
been frustrated due to the lack of documents being provided. There appeared
to be a willingness to provide the Prosecutor with the documents requested,
however, they had not been received yet. Different documents were held at
different locations. In respect of some documents, the OTPwas gaining full
access, however, in relation to the documents being sought for the last
four years or so, the OTP still did not have access and no assurance that
access would be granted.
The
Government was working hard in order to resolve this issue, and there was
a desire to do so. However, there was a great deal of resistance within
the administration, perhaps by people who might fear the actions of the
Tribunal might be resisting their supply, however, it was up to the Croatian
government to overcome this resistance and that was why the Prosecutor went
down to Zagreb two weeks ago and another reason why the Minister of Justice
was visiting the Tribunal today to try to resolve these issues so that the
OTP could reach the point where they could announce that they were satisfied
with Croatia’s cooperation, he concluded.
Asked
for the OTP’s view on the reports that President Alija Izetbegovic was to
step down and what problems in cooperation could this lead to, Blewitt replied
that the Government in Sarajevo had provided the most cooperation of all
the parties to the conflict in the former Yugoslavia right from the start.
The Bosniak party had in fact commenced cooperation in 1994 which had continued
ever since, he added. The Bosniak side had provided documentation and evidence,
which could have been regarded to be against their own interests. None of
the other parties had done this. Admittedly, there had only been one indictment
against Bosniak accused relating to the Celebici trial and there without
much hesitation the Bosniak side did in fact surrender two accused at a
time when it could not have been in their interest to do so. That demonstrated
the willingness of the Government to cooperate with the Tribunal and there
had been no change in their willingness to cooperate at any time. On the
issue of the resignation of President Izetbegovic, the OTP did not believe
this signaled any change in this cooperation, however that remained to be
seen, he concluded.
Asked
for an update on the issue of cooperation with the FRY, Blewitt replied
that the Prosecutor raised the issue of the state of cooperation on the
part of the FRY when she addressed the Security Council last Friday. She
did so in terms of noting that one of the consequences of the indictment
against Milosevic and the four other accused had been to bring to an end
all cooperation between the Tribunal and the FRY.
He
added that the Prosecutor believed that allegations that the Tribunal was
biased against Serbs were hollow when the OTP was denied access to the evidence
and victims, which would enable the Tribunal to bring indictments where
Serbs were the victims.
The
OTP was making extraordinary efforts to try and identify and locate witnesses
from the FRY through non-official channels and to encourage those people
to leave the FRY in order for interviews to be conducted in neighboring
countries where it would be safe for them to do so.
The
reality was that the OTP had no official point of contact in Yugoslavia,
therefore from the point of view of the Tribunal, it was a frustration.
However, the OTP would keep trying. The Prosecutor and investigators had
sought visas to get into Yugoslavia, however these had all been refused.
It was difficult to see how this position was going to improve in the short
term, he added.
Asked
for clarification on the fact that the OTP had requested a meeting with
the Russian Foreign Minister, Blewitt replied that it was true that the
Prosecutor had sought a meeting with him, particularly following his comments
made in the media in recent times. The Prosecutor met with the official
Russian delegation to the UN on Friday, he added. The Mission would convey
to Moscow the Prosecutor’s desire to meet, either here or in Moscow, with
the Foreign Minister in order to explain what the OTP’s strategies were
and what they were seeking to achieve. It caused the OTP some frustration
that they were not able to explain to the Russians the position of the OTP.
They appeared to be happy to criticize the Tribunal without taking an explanation
as to what the motives of the Tribunal were.
Asked
about the reports made on Sunday that the Prosecutor’s answers were not
convincing, Blewitt replied that these reports did appear in the media,
however that they did not take away the OTP’s desire to meet with the Russian
authorities.
Asked
whether the meeting with the Delegation was to discuss the OTP or merely
to discuss a possible meeting, Blewitt replied that the meeting with the
Russian delegation had been very brief. There was no opportunity to explain
the OTP’s position. It was merely an expression of the OTP’s frustration
at not being able to secure a meeting with the Foreign Minister. The Prosecutor
indicated that she had written to Moscow recently seeking such a meeting.
The delegation in New York was urged to recommend that such a meeting take
place at the earliest opportunity, he concluded.
Asked
whether this was the first time the OTP would make one of their reports
(into the NATO bombing campaign) public, Blewitt replied that it was.
Asked
why the report was to be made public, Blewitt replied that it would be done
in the hope that the Tribunal could be as transparent as possible. The Tribunal
had been accused of being political and a mere tool of NATO and this was
something that the Prosecutor’s office rejected and continued to reject,
he added.
The actions of the Tribunal were based on their legal obligations arising
out of the Security Council statute. The Tribunal would do what it believed
should be done and whether a particular result pleased or dissatisfied someone
-- this could not be taken into account. However, on such a controversial
issue as the NATO bombing, the OTP wanted to demonstrate that they are not
a political tool of NATO and that the allegations were examined and the
applicable law was applied to come up with the final conclusions.
He
added, that it was different also as far as the complaints and allegations
were made as there was no specific individual named as being totally responsible.
There was a general allegation that the various president’s and ministers
of defence and foreign ministers were collectively responsible, but there
was no particular person singled out for a particular incident.
In
the normal investigations against parties to the conflict in the former
Yugoslavia there were specific allegations and particularly where an investigation
resulted in no action being taken it was prejudicial to an individual to
announce publicly that he was actually investigated for a specific crime,
but the Prosecutor was not able to bring the indictment. It gave no opportunity
for this party to have any comeback and it flew in the face of the presumption
of innocence. In the NATO case however, it was not impinging on the presumption
of innocence of an individual it was more the organisation of NATO that
was the subject of the allegations and complaints, he concluded.
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