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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: 5 December 2001
Time: 11:00 a.m.
REGISTRY
AND CHAMBERS
Jim Landale, Spokesman for Registry and Chambers, made the following statement:
First,
I would like to remind everyone that next week on Tuesday 11 December 2001 there
will be an initial appearance in the Milosevic case for the Bosnia indictment.
Following that, there will be a motion hearing to hear oral submissions from
the parties on the Prosecutions’ Motion for Joinder, filed on 27 November 2001.
Today,
the Prime Minister of Malta Mr. Edward Fenech Adami and a delegation accompanying
him will be visiting the Tribunal. The Prime Minister, accompanied by, among
others, the Minister of Foreign Affairs will be meeting with the President of
the Tribunal, Judge Claude Jorda, the Registrar, Mr. Hans Holthuis and also
the Deputy Prosecutor, Mr. Graham Blewitt.
Moving
on, a delegation from the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, composed in
the main of senior legal professionals, is due to start a three-day visit to
the Tribunal today. The delegation includes the Minister of Justice, the Chief
Public Prosecutor, the President of the Supreme Court and others.
The
delegation will be met by the Registrar, and in the course of the three days,
they will meet with President Jorda, and with the Deputy Prosecutor. In addition,
they will meet with other representatives of the Chambers, Registry and Office
of the Prosecutor and will have the chance to sit in on ongoing trials.
The
visit is principally supported by the Peace and Stability Fund of the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs of Denmark as part of a series of Tribunal-related events
for 2001 that have been arranged through ICTY Outreach. The visit is organised
by the Skopje-based Centre for Strategic Research and Documentation (CSRD)
and ICTY Outreach. The group will also be accompanied by a couple of journalists.
In
terms of court documents:
We
have received for Mehmed Alagic an order granting leave to reply to the Prosecution’s
response to a motion for provisional release. From this document you can see
that Alagic filed a confidential motion for provisional release on 15 November.
For
both Hadzihasanovic and Kubura, we received on 4 December an application for
leave to file a reply to the Prosecution’s response to an application for provisional
release. Again, from this public document you will see that Kubura filed for
provisional release on 16 November and Hadzihasanovic on 15 November.
On
3 December we received the English copies of defence pre-trial briefs in the
Talic case. Copies will be available after this.
In
the Galic case, I have just received a copy of a decision by a bench of the
Appeals Chamber on the application by the defence for leave to appeal the form
of the indictment. The Appeals Chamber refused the application for leave to
appeal. Copies will be available after this.
Next
week:
There
will be a status conference for Milorad Krnojelac on Monday at 4.30 p.m. in
Courtroom I.
Also
on Monday, there will be a pre-trial conference in the Brdjanin and Talic case
at 2 p.m. in Courtroom II.
And,
at 2.30 p.m. there will be a status conference in the Krajisnik and Plavsic
case in Courtroom III.
On
Tuesday, there will be status conference in the Krstic case at 4.30 p.m. in
Courtroom II.
PROSECUTION
Graham Blewitt, Deputy Prosecutor, made no statement.
QUESTIONS:
Asked to
confirm that Aleksovski had been released and where he was now, Landale replied
that Aleksovski was released ten days to two weeks ago. He added that he did
not know where he was at this time, but that he would look into it.
Asked to
confirm that the Bosnian Serb authorities had been authorised by the Tribunal
to try two Bosnian Muslims in the domestic courts, and to what case this related,
Blewitt replied that he could not answer this question as he did not know
what particular case was being referred to, he could only assume that it was
a Rules of the Road case. He added, however, that nothing had occurred that
was out of the ordinary. He reiterated that he could only assume that the
case they were referring to was a Rules of the Road case because there had
been no other communication or arrangements made apart from the Rules of the
Road.
Asked to
clarify his comment that ‘this was nothing out of the ordinary’ as this was
reported to be the first time the Tribunal, under the Rules of the Road agreement,
had given its consent to the authorities of Republika Srpska to try a case
in their domestic courts, Blewitt replied that for many years the only cases
the OTP received were cases sent by the Bosniak side. The Bosnian Croats and
Bosnian Serbs had not even submitted cases under the Rules of the Road.
In more recent
times, for the last 18 months or so, the Bosnian Serbs had submitted cases
under the Rules of the Road process. These were being examined and the decisions
were being sent back. When the decision went back, assuming there was sufficient
evidence, they then had an indication as to whether the case could proceed
to the next stage, which might involve the apprehension of the accused and
the commencement of the prosecution. It should be borne in mind that with
a lot of the Rules of the Road cases the suspect or accused were probably
not living in the region where a particular party had the opportunity to arrest
them. He reiterated that he did not know the details of the case under discussion,
however, it might be that the only chance available to pursue a case was when
a person was actually arrested.
Asked whether
this was an expression of confidence on the part of the OTP in the justice
system of the Republika Srpska, Blewitt replied that it would not be wrong
to form this opinion.
Asked to confirm
that some approval had been given by the OTP, Blewitt replied that he could
confirm that cases had gone back to the Republika Srpska with indications
that the Prosecutor was satisfied that the evidence was sufficient for a local
prosecution to proceed. He could not give a precise number of such cases,
but there had certainly been quite a lot of them.
Asked whether
this had been in the last 18 months, Blewitt replied that this was correct.
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