ICTY Weekly Press Briefing - 3rd May 2006

Please note that this
is not a verbatim transcript of the Press
Briefing. It is merely a summary.

Date:
03.05.2006

Time: 13:30

Registry
and Chambers:

Christian Chartier, Senior Information
Officer, made the following statement:

Good Afternoon,

I would like to share with you a
couple of short remarks.

The first one is that the appeals
judgement in the case against Mladen
Naletilic and Vinko Martinovic will be
rendered in a short while, the hearing
starting at 2:15 p.m. in courtroom I.
This judgement will bring the number
of individuals with regard to whom ICTY
proceedings have been concluded to 97.
Sixty-four more accused are being or
will be processed, including six fugitives;
among them Radovan Karadzic and Ratko
Mladic.

The second one is a follow-up on
a question which was asked last week
regarding a possible case of alleged
harassment at the Tribunal. This case
is now completed : the Registry has received
from the Office of Human Resources Management
in New York a letter closing the case
with no disciplinary action being taken.

With regards to courtroom proceedings,
12 accused are currently on trial in
four different cases. The four cases
will be heard every day this week and
next week as follows:

The proceedings against Jadranko
Prlic, Bruno Stojic, Slobodan Praljak,
Milivoj Petkovic, Valentin Coric and
Berislav Pusic, former high-ranking political
and military officials of the then Herceg-Bosna,
will sit this week at 9:00 in courtroom
I, continuing next Tuesday and Wednesday
at the same time. Next Monday the trial
will sit in the afternoon at 14:15.

The trial of Milan Martic, former President
of the war-time Croatian Serb entity,
will sit for the rest of this week at
14:15 in courtroom II. It will continue
next week in the same courtroom in the
mornings.

The Vukovar trial against Mile Mrksic,
Miroslav Radic and Veselin Sljivancanin,
all former Yugoslav Army high-ranking
officers, will sit tomorrow from 9:30
to 12:30 and then from 13:30 to 16:30
in courtroom I. On Friday it will sit
only in the morning, starting at 9:00,
again in courtroom I. The hearing will
sit next Monday in the same courtroom
from 12:00 to 17:00 and on Tuesday all
day starting at 9:30 and ending at 16:30
with a one hour break for lunch at 12:30.

Momcilo Krajisnik will continue on the
witness stand for the rest of this week
in the mornings in courtroom II. Next
week the proceedings will continue in
the same courtroom but in the afternoon.

Tomorrow afternoon, also in courtroom
III at 16:30 there will be a status conference
in the Limaj, Bala and Musliu case. Only
Bala will be present.

Finally, with regards to court filings,
in addition to the usual list, note that
Trial Chamber III issued late last week
two interesting decisions:

- it has dismissed a Motion by the Defence
of Jovica Stanisic claiming that the
accused was unfit to stand trial

- it has also dismissed a Motion by
five of the six accused in the Milutinovic
et al. case to postpone the start of
the trial, expected to be early July.

Office of the Prosecutor:

The Prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte,
made the following statement:

I spoke this morning with Commissioner
Olli Rehn to provide him with my assessment
of the cooperation provided by Serbia
and Montenegro to my office. This assessment
is negative and could be summarized in
three points:

1. There has been no progress in
locating any of the remaining six fugitives.
According to the relevant Security Council
resolutions, Serbia and Montenegro remains
obliged to fully cooperate with the ICTY
in order to bring Radovan Karadzic, Ratko
Mladic, Zdravko Tolimir, Goran Hadzic,
Stojan Zupljanin and Vlastimir Djordjevic
to justice in The Hague.

2. It is particularly disappointing
that, despite the commitments taken at
the highest level of the Serbian government,
Ratko Mladic has not been arrested and
transferred to The Hague. The obvious
conclusion I can draw is that I was mislead
when I was told, at the end of March,
that the arrest of Mladic was a matter
of days or weeks. The information which
was presented to me at that time to substantiate
that a positive outcome could be expected
soon has proven to be either wrong, or
largely misrepresented. It appears that
most efforts of the authorities were
with a view to force Mladic to surrender
voluntarily, unfortunately, and it has
to be stated clearly and without any
shred of a doubt that this expectation
is completely unrealistic and simply
wrong.

3. The cooperation provided by Serbia
and Montenegro regarding also access
to documents remains not fully satisfactory.

It is true and it has to be acknowledged
that Serbia and Montenegro has successfully
encouraged the voluntary surrender of
a dozen indictees between December 2004
and April 2005. Since 25 April 2005,
more than a year now, there has been
no progress on the remaining fugitives.
The efforts made by the relevant civilian
and military authorities so far have
failed to convince me that there is a
focused and coordinated plan aimed at
arresting and transferring the remaining
fugitives to The Hague.

My Office will continue to do everything
it can, within the limits of its mandate
and resources, to bring these persons
accused of the most serious crimes to
The Hague. If Serbia and Montenegro continues
to fail to cooperate fully with my Office,
we cannot expect positive results. At
this moment there is no full co-operation.
I will inform the Security Council of
this highly unsatisfactory situation
in June.

Just recently I was informed about
the statement and decision of the EU
Commissioner Ollie Rehn to suspend the
talks with Serbia and Montenegro. I am
grateful to Commissioner Rehn for all
support given to the efforts of my Office
as this support is vital for the Tribunal’s
interest to get all remaining fugitives
to justice.

Questions:

Asked by a journalist whether she
was holding the government in Serbia
responsible not only for the arrest of
Ratko Mladic but for all the remaining
six fugitives from justice, including
Radovan Karadzic who was believed to
be in Bosnia and Vlastimir Djordjevic
who was reported to be hiding in Russia,
the Prosecutor said that she was concerned
primarily about Mladic now. She added
that she needed a full cooperation from
Belgrade for all other fugitives. She
added that it was true that some information
had been given to the OTP that Djordjevic
was in Russia. But it remains an open
question. The same is for Karadzic. The
Prosecutor said she had absolutely no
information about the location of Karadzic.
She added that he could be in Republika
Srpska, in Montenegro, in Serbia, she
didn’t know. She said that most
probably the only sure information was
that he was in the region.

A journalist asked where the plans
to make Mladic’s voluntarily surrender
come from. Ms Del Ponte said that she
had facts, or better to say, she received
reports from Belgrade. She added that
at the end of January this year, Belgrade
had a lead to arrest Mladic however,
they did not do that because they sent
a message to Mladic suggesting a voluntary
surrender. The Prosecutor added that
she, therefore, could not accept that
the authorities were still working on
obtaining the voluntary surrender.

Asked whether she knew what the
Serbian Government was offering Mladic
to induce him to surrender she said that
the last time she spoke with Prime Minister
Kostunica he told her that they were
ready to arrest him. But, apparently,
this was not the case.

A journalist asked whether she expected
any change because of the deposition
by the European Commission, and the Prosecutor
replied that she strongly hoped that
there would be a change.

Asked what kind of pressure she
expected from the Security Council, the
Prosecutor said that the Security Council
had different decisions that it could
reach, the strongest being a new resolution
or even sanctions. So it will be for
the Security Council to decide how to
react on the OTP position. She expressed
hope for a reaction by the Security Council
because she needed full support from
the international community. Otherwise,
Mladic and Karadzic would not be brought
to The Hague.

A journalist mentioned that a year
ago the Prosecutor promised that, if
Karadzic and Mladic were not in The Hague
by the end of last year she would disclose
some documentation proving the responsibility
for the complicity in hiding the fugitives.
The Prosecutor said she had never spoken
about documentation, but about the information.
She added that the OTP evaluated the
situation and was of an opinion that
it was better to wait until there was
really no hope any more to obtain Karadzic
and Mladic, in order not to disturb what
was going on or should be on-going now.
She added that once Karadzic and Mladic
were in The Hague or Mladic was in The
Hague, than she could disclose a full
picture about what had been done, what
had not been done, what had been omitted,
intentionally or not, that could not
have had the success in the arrest of
Mladic. She added that in her view, it
was a question of time. She said that,
since her mandate was expiring in September
2007, she must have Karadzic and Mladic,
otherwise, it would be the time to disclose
all available information.

A journalist made a remark that
the Prime Minister Kostunica had appealed
for Mladic’s voluntary surrender
just before the press conference began.
The Prosecutor said that this was confirming
what she had just said: that the Government
was not ready to arrest him. They wanted
him to surrender. She added that this
confirmed what she had just said and
that it was tragic and scandalous because
Kostunica himself had told her they were
ready to arrest him. She concluded they
had a double face approach which she
found absolutely unacceptable.

Asked whether she believed the Government
could arrest him any moment they made
that decision, the Prosecutor said she
did not know if they knew today where
he was. However, she added that they
had known Mladic’s exact location
two weeks or ten days before. She added
that apparently Mladic was moving very
quickly from one apartment to another
in Belgrade. Asked to confirm whether
she thought Mladic was in Belgrade, the
Prosecutor said that for her he was in
Belgrade. She added that he was moving
from one apartment to the other and that,
as he now felt threatened, he was moving
very quickly. She added she did not really
know whether this was true or not because
now it was difficult to believe what
they were saying or what they were writing
in their reports they sent to the OTP.

A journalist said that what the
Prosecutor was saying about Mladic moving
from one apartment to another, hiding
in Belgrade, matched very much to what
tabloids were reporting in Serbia. She
asked if there were more reliable sources
and whether the information was not coming
only from the media. The Prosecutor said
that this information was not coming
from the media. She added that she was
also very surprised to see that, while
conducting an investigation to locate
a fugitive like Mladic, it was allowed
for the press to be informed about what
was done. She added that this was how
Mladic would know exactly what they were
doing because he was also informed from
the press or from other leads. The Prosecutor
added that she suspected that Mladic
was well informed on what the authorities
were doing to locate him. She added that
they were working and investigating,
unprofessionally and it was really not
a proper investigation they were conducting.
Therefore, it was easy not to have success,
not to locate him. She added that most
probably Mladic was well informed about
what they were doing and he was moving
accordingly from one place to the other.
She added she hoped the pressure would
be so strong that the Government would
finally react.

Asked whether she said that the
authorities had informed Mladic, the
Prosecutor said that she had not said
that, but that there could be leaks to
Mladic. And that the press was informing
Mladic what was going on.

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