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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: 14 November 2001
Time: 11:00 a.m.
REGISTRY AND CHAMBERS
Jim Landale,
Spokesman for Registry and Chambers, made the following statement:
The six new permanent
Judges of the Tribunal will take their solemn declarations on Thursday 22 November
at 5.30 p.m. in Courtroom I. The new Judges were elected by the General Assembly
on 14 March 2001. They are:
Mr. Carmel A.
Agius from Malta
Mr. Mohamed
Amin El Abbassi Elmahdi from Egypt
Mr. O-gon
Kwon from the Republic of Korea
Mr. Theodor
Meron from the United States of America
Mr. Alphonsus
Martinus Maria Orie from the Netherlands, and
Mr. Wolfgang
Schomburg from Germany.
You are all welcome
to attend that ceremony if you so wish.
The following
day, during an extraordinary plenary session, all of the permanent Judges will
elect the President and Vice President of the Tribunal. Following that, one
of the first tasks for the new President will be to work out the composition
of the Chambers. We will obviously inform you of the outcome of those deliberations.
As you should
already know, the initial appearance of Miodrag Jokic will take place this afternoon
at 2.30 p.m. in Courtroom III in front of Trial Chamber I, Judge Rodrigues presiding.
On 13 November,
we received a notice of appeal filed by Miroslav Kvocka. Copies of that document
will be available after this.
In addition,
we have for you copies of two warrants of arrest for Dragomir Milosevic, signed
by Judge Pocar on 13 November, to the authorities of the Republika Srpska in
Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to the authorities of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Finally a reminder
that the Appeals Chamber for the Rwanda Tribunal will be handing down its Judgement
in the Musema case on Friday. The ICTR’s Spokesman, Kingsley Moghalu, will hold
a briefing for the media tomorrow, Thursday at 1.30 p.m. in this room and then
another following the Judgement on Friday. You are all welcome to attend.
OFFICE
OF THE PROSECUTOR
Florence Hartmann, Spokeswoman for the Office of the Prosecutor, made the following
statement:
I would
like to update you on the Prosecutor’s upcoming visits. She will be in Skopje
in Macedonia on Tuesday 20 November 2001. This will be a short one-day visit.
The week after next, the Prosecutor will be in New York addressing the Security
Council on 26 November 2001. At the beginning of December she will be in Arusha
at the ICTR. This will be for two weeks.
QUESTIONS:
Asked when
Pasko Ljubicic would arrive at the Tribunal, Hartmann replied that she did
not know exactly. She added however that the process for his transfer to The
Hague was ongoing in Croatia.
Asked what
this process was, Hartmann replied that it was the usual process that took
place in Croatia, which was that the accused would be brought before a Judge
whether they had been arrested or had voluntary surrendered. This process
was going fine. The OTP had been kept informed by the Croatian authorities
from the beginning.
Asked when
the Bosnia indictment would be confirmed, Hartmann replied that the question
was not for the OTP to answer. She added that the OTP had done its job.
Landale added
that the Judge reviewing the indictment would take as much time as needed
to review all of the supporting material before coming to a decision whether
to reject it or confirm it. It was a decision entirely up to the Judge to
take.
Asked whether
there was a time limit, Landale replied that there was not.
Asked for what
reasons the Prosecutor would be visiting Macedonia, Hartmann replied that
she could not give details for the moment. She added, however, that the OTP
was presently in the field in Macedonia collecting information about what
happened there in order to see whether crimes and violations of international
law had been committed or not. The Prosecutor was going to Skopje to be updated
on the latest issues relating to this. The OTP would make a decision on the
basis of this information.
Asked whether
the Prosecutor had found evidence of crimes there that fell under the jurisdiction
of the Tribunal, Hartmann replied that she would prefer to answer this question
after the Prosecutor’s visit to Macedonia.
Asked who the
Prosecutor would meet in Macedonia, Hartmann replied that she could not give
precise details of the meetings but the Prosecutor was going to meet with
representatives of the international community because they were also following
the situation there. She would also meet with officials in Skopje, the Minister
of Justice and other representatives of the Ministry of Interior. The Prosecutor
would meet with people who were directly linked to any information about this
situation.
Asked whether
the Tribunal had any control over what Biljana Plavsic did in Serbia, Landale
replied that Biljana Plavsic was on provisional release at the moment and
that there were various conditions attached to provisional release decided
by the Judges. These conditions usually included guaranties that an accused
on provisional release would reappear at the right moment to stand trial and
that they were not going to interfere with any of the potential witnesses
in the trial.
Asked whether
the Tribunal was sure that these conditions would be met, Landale replied
that the Judges had to be absolutely confident that these conditions would
be met and upheld before they would agree to any provisional release, so obviously
they were satisfied that they would be.
Asked whether
the Tribunal had received the material from the Republika Srpska concerning
Izetbegovic, Hartmann replied that she could not confirm that they had arrived
here in The Hague. They had been handed over to the OTP’s representative in
Banja Luka on the same day as the Prime Minister there announced that they
would be given to the Tribunal. Since the beginning of this week, the OTP
was trying to bring the documents directly to The Hague, in order for them
to be partially translated. There were more than 50 kgs of documents and videotapes.
As far as she knew, everything was in BCS and would have to be translated.
The OTP could not give any statement or appreciation of the documents sent
to the OTP and this could be for a long time. She concluded that the OTP would
review those documents in the same way as all documents submitted to the OTP.
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