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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: 12.02.2004
Time: 2 p.m.
REGISTRY AND CHAMBERS:
Christian Chartier, Head of Public Information, made the
following statement:
Good afternoon to you all,
It is two years
to the day since the trial of Slobodan Milosevic commenced. The
Prosecution is due to conclude their case next week having called
300 witnesses during 295 court days. If you take into consideration
that a court day has an average duration of 6 hours, the first ever
trial of a former Head of State, has so far lasted the equivalent
of 219 regular working days, that is 11 months.
I have been advised
that an Order is being filed as we speak by Trial Chamber III setting
forth the schedule up to the commencement of the Defence case in
the Milosevic proceedings. It includes the following dates: The
accused has to file his list of witnesses and exhibits by 1 April
2004. A pre-Defence conference will take place on 23 April and the
Defence case will commence on 19 May 2004.
With regard to the court schedule for the
coming week:
In addition to the Milosevic case, the trials of
Brdjanin, Hadzihasanovic and Kubura, Strugar and Krajisnik are continuing
this week.
Also, I would like
to remind you that the contempt proceedings against Milka Maglov,
the former Defence Co-Counsel for Radislav Brdjanin, will commence
on Monday morning at 9 a.m. in Courtroom II. I would like to draw
your attention to a Decision issued on 6 February 2004 by the Chamber
granting the Prosecution leave to amend the allegations of contempt.
This document is one of the many on the list of documents that will
be distributed after the briefing.
Furthermore, following
the filing on 9 February 2004 of an amended Indictment in the Vukovar
Hospital case, Mile Mrksic, Miroslav Radic and Veselin Slijvacanin
will be in court on 16 February 2004. Proceedings are scheduled
to commence at 12 p.m. Radic and Slivancanin will enter a plea against
the four new charges contained in the amended Indictment, namely,
persecution, extermination and torture (the latter being charged
as both a crime against humanity and a violation of the laws and
customs of war). Following this, a status conference will be held
for the three accused. Copies of this document have been prepared
for the media and will be made available after the briefing or can
be obtained from the ICTY website if you prefer to download it.
Finally, there
are a number of interesting status conferences coming up. In chronological
order they are:
- in The Prosecutor
v. Dario Kordic and Mario Cerkez on 16 February, starting at
2.15 p.m.
- in The Prosecutor v. Miroslav Kvocka,Mladen Radic, Zoran Zigic,
and Dragoljub Prcac on 13 February, at 2.30 p.m.
- and finally, in The Prosecutor v. Vojislav Seselj, on
17 February at 11 a.m.
Office of the Prosecutor:
Florence Hartmann, Spokeswoman for the Office of the Prosecutor,
made no statement.
Questions:
A journalist commented on the fact that this week the previously
scheduled hours in the Milosevic trial had been shortened. Asked
if the Prosecutor would lose these hours or whether additional time
would be given to them next week, Chartier replied that Judge Robinson
had reiterated at the beginning of the morning session that the
Trial Chamber would sit next week on Wednesday and Thursday on the
basis of an extended schedule. This meant that they would sit from
9 a.m. to 12.30 p.m., resuming at 2 p.m. and continuing until 5.15
p.m. The Prosecution hours would, he confirmed, be slightly less
than planned.
A journalist stated that she and many of her colleagues were
writing ‘wrap up’ stories to coincide with the end of the Milosevic
Prosecution case. Asked whether, to facilitate this, a list of Prosecution
witnesses and the dates that they had testified was available on
the ICTY website, Chartier replied that such a list was not available
on the ICTY web site, but that that the Public Information Services
(PIS) had maintained a witness list throughout the trial. He added
that he saw no reason why this list should not be made available
to the media.
Asked whether it would be possible to equip the ICTY website
with a search engine to facilitate transcript searches, Chartier
replied that as far as the ICTY website was concerned, it was not
that the PIS had forgotten to add a search engine, but was due to
the fact that the server used by the Tribunal was located in New
York and as long as that was the case, which he was afraid would
be for a number of years, the website would not be able to provide
sophisticated search engines.
A journalist stated that he understood from the Swedish prison
authorities that Plavsic was currently in The Hague to testify at
the Tribunal. Asked in which case she was due to testify in and
if she was not due to testify why she was out of prison, Chartier
replied that firstly he was not aware that Plavsic was out of Sweden.
He added that if she was, he was not aware of her whereabouts. He
concluded that no witness lists in Tribunal cases were made available
to him, so he could not say any more on the subject.
Asked whether the OTP could comment, Hartmann replied that the
OTP was competent only with regards to the last element of Christian’s
answer, but that she was not aware of any witness lists.
The journalist stated that the authorities had said that Plavsic
was in The Hague to testify. Asked how nobody from the Tribunal
was aware of this fact, Chartier replied that they were not in a
position to confirm the statement to the media.
According to a journalist,
a senior Serbian government official had described the Chief Prosecutor’s
aspersions that Karadzic was in Belgrade as ‘science fiction’, he
asked for a Prosecution response. Hartmann replied that she would
not comment on the statement. She added, however, that the OTP had
experience, not only with Belgrade, but with other States from the
former Yugoslavia when it was said that a fugitive was in their
territory, that they would usually deny it. On many occasions the
public received confirmation later that denials were not accurate.
She concluded that from experience, it appeared that these kinds
of denials were not always accurate.
List of Documents:
Prosecutor v. Milosevic:
- 04 February 2004 "Prosecution Motion under Rule 73(A)
for a Ruling on the Competence of the Amici Curiae to Present
a Motion for Judgement of Acquittal under Rule 98 Bis".
- 05 February 2004 "Decision on Prosecution’s Motion under
Rule 73 (A) for a Ruling on the Competence of the Amici Curiae
to Present a Motion for Judgement of Acquittal under Rule 98 Bis".
- 06 February 2004 "Decision on Prosecution Motion for Admission
of Statement Pursuant to Rule 92 Bis (A) for Witness Amor
Masovic".
- 06 February 2004 "Prosecution Motion for the Admission of
Written Evidence from Witness B-100 Pursuant to Rule 92 Bis".
- 06 February 2004 "Prosecution Motion for the Admission of
Written Evidence from 3 Deceased Witnesses Pursuant to Rule 92 Bis".
- 06 February 2004 "Prosecution Motion to Admit Selected Exhibits
Through Witness Renaud Theunens".
- 09 February 2004 "Amici Curiae Reply to Prosecution
Motion for the Admission of Witness Statement of Investigator Bernard
O’Donnell in Lieu of Viva Voce Testimony Pursuant to Rules 54 and
92 Bis Dated 3 February 2004".
- 09 February 2004 "Second Decision on Admissibility of Intercepted
Communications".
- 09 February 2004 "Amici Curiae Reply to Prosecution
Motion for the Admission of the Written Statement of Ms. Jeri Laber
in Lieu of Viva Voce Testimony Pursuant to Rule 92 Bis Dated
5 February 2004".
- 09 February 2004 "Decision of the Deputy Registrar".
- 10 February 200 "Amici Curiae Reply to Prosecution
Motion for the Admission of Written Evidence from 3 Deceased Witnesses
Pursuant to Rule 92 Bis Dated 6 February 2004".
- 10 February 2004 "Order Under Rule 15 Bis to Sit in
the Absence of a Judge".
Prosecutor v. Hadzihasanovic/Kubura:
5 February 2004 "Joint Defence Reply to Prosecution
Response to Joint defence Motion for Judicial Notice of Adjudicated
Facts".
Prosecutor v. Mrksic/Radic/Sljivancanin:
04 February 2004 "Decision".
09 February 2004 "Scheduling Order for Further Appearance and
Status Conference".
Prosecutor v. Momcilo Krajisnik:
04 February 2004 "Decision".
10 February 2004 "Defence Motion to Exclude the Evidence of
Miroslav Deronjic or in the Alternative to Preclude his Testimony
Prior to being Sentenced".
Prosecutor v. Radoslav Brdjanin:
06 February 2004 "Decision on Motion by Amicus Curiae
Prosecutor to Amend Allegations of Contempt of the Tribunal".
Prosecutor v. Vojislav Seselj:
09 February 2004 "Decision of the Deputy Registrar".
Prosecutor v. Milutinovic, Sainovic and Ojdanic:
06 February 2004 "Prosecution’s Request for Extension
of time for Response to "General Ojdanic’s Opening Brief"
(Interlocutory Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Jurisdiction: Kosovo)".
09 February 2004 "Prosecution’s
Response to Admissibility of "General Ojdanic’s Opening brief"
Of 30 January 2004 Pursuant to Rule 72(E)".
Prosecutor v. Tihomir Blaskic:
06 February 2004 "Prosecution’s Notice of Compliance
with the Appeals Chamber’s Decision of 28 January 2004".
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