ICTY Weekly Press Briefing - 17th Oct 2007

ICTY Weekly Press Briefing

Date: 17.10.2007

Time: 12:00

Registry and Chambers:

Liam McDowall, Senior Policy Advisor to the Registry made the following announcement:

SCHEDULE:

In terms of the schedule, all on-going trials will continue this and next week. A status conference in the Gotovina et al. case has been scheduled for next Friday, 26 October. The hearing will take place in courtroom III at 2:15pm.

The appeals judgement in the case against Dragan Zelenović has been scheduled for 31 October. The time of the judgement and the courtroom in which it is to take place will be made known later.

Next Wednesday is UN Day and the Tribunal will be closed. There will therefore be no briefing next week unless advised otherwise.

Office of the Prosecutor:

Olga Kavran, Spokesperson for the Office of the Prosecutor, read out the following statement from the Prosecutor:

The Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte will travel to Belgrade next week, on 25 and 26 October, to asses the progress of cooperation of Serbia with her Office and will brief the European Union’s Enlargement Commissioner, Mr. Olli Rehn on the issue.

This visit is a part of the Prosecutor’s continuing efforts to work together with the Serbian authorities so that they may achieve full cooperation with the ICTY. At her briefing to the EU member states in Luxembourg on Monday, the Prosecutor acknowledged the progress made thus far by the Serbian authorities in terms of cooperation and welcomed their recent decision to reward those who provide information leading to the arrest of ICTY fugitives. She also stressed that full access to crucial archives was still denied by the Serbian authorities even though such access had been promised on several occasions. The Prosecutor asked that the Serbian authorities intensify their search operations and improve the coordination between services involved in the search for fugitives.

Questions:

A journalist pointed out that the Prosecutor’s assessment to the EU member states on Monday in Luxembourg sounded critical of Serbia’s cooperation with the Tribunal but that in an interview with Der Speigel she sounded quite positive saying Mladić would be in The Hague by December this year. Asked if these statements were contradictory, Kavran responded that the media reports on the assessment were arguably more negative than the assessment itself. Kavran suggested the full speech be read and stated that it was actually a balanced assessment of the situation as it was at the moment.

Kavran further stated that the Prosecutor acknowledged the positive movements that have been made, the arrests of Tolimir and Đorđevic and other positive movements at the beginning of the summer. But the Prosecutor also warned that things had slowed down and certain things had not, in her estimate, moved as quickly as they should have. Kavran said that the Prosecutor had stated that for a couple of months following the June visit members of her office observed operations on the ground and the coordination of relevant services. They assessed that this was not sufficiently functional. Since September there representatives of the OTP are much more actively involved in assisting this coordination. She concluded that cooperation was moveable and changeable and stressed that the Prosecutor's assessment to the EU was balanced and addressed the positives while warning of those aspects that needed to be improved.

Asked why the Prosecutor did not repeat in her assessment in Luxembourg that she was 80% sure that Mladić would be brought to The Hague by December, Kavran said that it was the Prosecutor’s hope that this would be achieved. Asked when the interview for Der Spiegel took place, Kavran said that it was a few weeks ago.

Asked if there was any indication when the three judge panel would decide on the defence motion by Milan Martić asking that Judge Schomburg be excluded from sitting on the Appeals Chamber bench for his case, McDowall said that he had no indication and would get back to the journalist.

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