|
Please
note that this is not a verbatim transcript of the Press Briefing. It is merely
a summary.
ICTY Weekly
Press Briefing
Date: 18.06.2003
Time: 12:20
REGISTRY AND
CHAMBERS
Jim Landale,
Spokesman for Registry and Chambers, made the following opening statement:
Good afternoon,
On Friday and Saturday 13
and 14 June, the Tribunal’s Outreach Programme and the Croatian Association
for Criminal Sciences and Practice from Zagreb organised a conference on Command
Responsibility in international and national law. The conference was the second
segment of a two-part event supported by the Peace and Stability Fund of the
Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and attended by judges, prosecutors and other
senior legal professionals from Croatia and Serbia and Montenegro. This seminar
provided an opportunity for legal professionals from both countries to discuss
a legal doctrine which is directly related to the ability of local judiciaries
to handle war crimes cases.
Among the court documents
we have received since the last briefing, the following are brought to your
attention:
In the Appeals Chamber:
On 13 June, in The Prosecutor v. Drago Josipovic, we received an Order
from the President of the ICTY, Judge Meron, ordering that the Appeals Chamber
in this case be composed of Judges Meron, Pocar, Shahabuddeen, Liu and Guney.
On 13 June, in the same
case, the Appeals Chamber issued its "Decision on Request for Extension
of Time", in which it granted the Request and ordered the Defence to
file the public version of the relevant Documents no later than Monday, 16 June
2003.
On 13 June, in The Prosecutor
v. Milan Milutinovic, Nikola Sainovic and Dragoljub Ojdanic, we received
another Order from President Meron, ordering that the Appeals Chamber in this
case be composed of Judges Pocar, Shahabuddeen, and Guney.
From the Bureau:
On 10 June in The Prosecutor
v. Vojislav Seselj we received a "Decision on Motion for Disqualification"
from the Bureau, comprised of Judge Meron, President, Judge Pocar, Vice-President,
and Judges May, Liu and Jorda, in which the Bureau denied the 21 May 2003 application
as "frivolous and an abuse of process".
In the Trial Chambers:
With regard to the
testimony of Zoran Lilic, I’m happy to say that we can provide copies of exhibits
277, exhibit 387 tab 38, exhibit 387 tab 37 and exhibit 245 for those who do
not already have copies, and I understand that many of you already do. We should
be in a position to provide you with the other exhibits relating to his testimony
once he has finished.
On 5 June, in The Prosecutor
v. Slobodan Milosevic, we received the Trial Chamber’s "Decision
in Part on Prosecution Motion for Orders Pursuant to Rule 54 bis Against Serbia
and Montenegro", in which the Trial Chamber ordered "Serbia
and Montenegro to produce, within one month of the date of this Order, the stenographic
recordings of the Supreme Defence Council Minutes of meetings identified in
the Priority List of Documents at Item 9 (or requests for Assistance numbers
117 and 219 described)".
On 12 June, in The Prosecutor
v. Slobodan Milosevic, we received the Trial Chamber’s "Second Decision
on Prosecution Motion for Orders Pursuant to Rule 54 bis Against Serbia and
Montenegro", which ordered the parties to undertake certain actions
set forth in an Annex to the Decision. Copies of both the Decision and the Annex
will be available after this briefing for those of you who do not already have
copies.
On 11 June, in The Prosecutor
v. Naser Oric, Trial Chamber III issued its "Decision on Confidential
Application for Leave to File a Reply and Motion for an Extension of Time",
in which the Trial Chamber granted the Motion and allowed the Defence 14 days
from the filing of the "Confidential Prosecution’s Response to the Defence
Application for Provisional Release" to file its reply.
On 12 June, again in The
Prosecutor v. Naser Oric, we received a "Scheduling Order",
setting Tuesday 1 July 2003 at 3 p.m. for a hearing on the "Application
for Provisional Release" filed confidentially by the Defence on 21
May 2003, and the Response filed confidentially by the Prosecution on 3 June
2003.
On 11 June, in The Prosecutor
v. Radoslav Brdjanin, we received a "Scheduling Order"
from Trial Chamber II, ordering the Prosecution to finish its case by Friday
1 August 2003. The Trial chamber also ordered the Defence to file any motion
pursuant to Rule 98 bis by Friday, 15 August 2003, and in a Corrigendum dated
13 June, the Trial Chamber ordered the Prosecution to file its response to any
Rule 98 bis motion within seven days.
On 12 June, in The Prosecutor
v. Momir Talic, we received an "Order Terminating Proceedings Against
Momir Talic" from Trial Chamber II.
On 13 June, in The Prosecutor
v. Mile Mrksic and Miroslav Radic, we received an "Order for Filing
of Motions and Related Matters".
On 17 June, in The Prosecutor
v. Vidoje Blagojevic and Dragan Jokic, Trial Chamber I Section A issued
its "Decision on Prosecution’s Motion for Leave to File Third Amended
Indictment", in which it granted the Motion.
On 17 June, in The Prosecutor
v. Enver Hadzihasanovic and Amir Kubura, Trial Chamber II (Judge Schomburg,
presiding, Judges Mumba and Agius) issued its "Decision on Urgent Motion
for Ex Parte Oral Hearing on Allocation of Resources to the Defence and Consequences
Thereof for the Rights of the Accused to a Fair Trial", in which the
Trial Chamber dismissed the request for an ex parte oral hearing, denied the
Motion as being "inadmissible" and therefore denied the request
for certification.
In terms of other court
documents:
On 10 June, in The Prosecutor
v. Slobodan Milosevic, we received the "Prosecution’s Corrigendum
of the Expert Report of Renaud de la Brosse".
On 11 June, again in The
Prosecutor v. Slobodan Milosevic, we received the "Prosecution Motion
for the Admission of Written Statements of B-1047 in Lieu of Viva Voce Testimony
Pursuant to Rule 92 bis".
On 12 June, again in The
Prosecutor v. Slobodan Milosevic, we received the "Amici Curiae
Observations on the Prosecution Motion for the Admission of the Written Statement
of B-1047 in Lieu of Viva Voce Testimony Pursuant to Rule 92 bis".
On 13 June, once more in
The Prosecutor v. Slobodan Milosevic, we received the "Addendum
to Prosecution Motion for the Admission of Written Statements of B-1047 in Lieu
of Viva Voce Testimony Pursuant to Rule 92 bis".
On 16 June, in The Prosecutor
v. Milan Milutinovic, Nikola Sainovic and Dragoljub Ojdanic, we received
the "Proseuction’s Response to ‘General Ojdanic’s Application for Leave
to Appeal: Decision on Second Applications for Provisional Release’".
On 17 June, in The Prosecutor
v. Miroslav Radic, we received the "Defence Preliminary Motion".
Copies of all the documents
I have mentioned are available to you on request.
Florence Hartmann, Spokeswoman
for the Office of the Prosecutor made no Statement.
Questions:
A journalist stated that
he had heard that the OTP would invite Dobrica Cosic to testify in the Milosevic
case. Asked whether the OTP intended to invite him or whether they were satisfied
that, as he said, everything they needed could be found in his books, Hartmann
replied that this was not an issue that the OTP addressed publicly.
Asked what the Prosecution
had hoped to achieve with Lilic’s testimony, as he so far appeared to be confirming
Milosevic’s claims, Hartmann replied that, as with the previous question, this
was not a question that she could answer.
Asked whether there was
any news as to when Sljivancanin would be transferred to The Hague, Hartmann
replied that, although he had been arrested following a Tribunal arrest warrant,
he currently remained under the jurisdiction of the Serbian authorities. This
question should be addressed to them. The Tribunal had received no notice that
Sljivancanin would be transferred straight away, but hoped that he would be
transferred as soon as possible.
A journalist stated that
after the arrest of Sljivancanin, many western Governments appeared to be very
happy with the cooperation given by Serbia and Montenegro to the Tribunal. Asked
whether the OTP shared this view, Hartmann replied that the OTP had said just
after his arrest that it was a good thing, especially when it had taken almost
eight years for the arrest warrant to be executed, but it seemed that the Government
there had acted only after being pressed by the American Authorities.
She added, however, that
there were still another 18 fugitives at large in Serbia and Montenegro and
that the OTP had always said that it was its priority to arrest all of them,
not only Radic and Sljivancanin who were arrested quite close to their homes.
She added that the will which led to the arrests last week, or over the last
few weeks, should continue in order to solve the problem the Tribunal had concerning
the arrest of all other fugitives.
It was an obligation and
the Government should not only act when it was specifically asked to do so by
another Government, as part of their bilateral relations. It was an international
obligation. Other fugitives living in Serbia could be located and arrested in
the next hours or days. Nothing had happened. The OTP was not satisfied with
the cooperation received from Serbia and Montenegro in this sense. As well as
no one else being arrested, the Tribunal continued to face problems relating
to access to documents, as could be seen by the binding orders that were filed
by the Judges in the Milosevic case, she concluded.
Landale added, on behalf
of the Tribunal to reinforce what Florence had said, that the Tribunal welcomed,
as a positive development, the arrest of Sljivancanin. The Tribunal would like
to see him transferred in good time. Again, as Florence had just said, there
were other individuals who had been indicted by the Tribunal who were still
at large. Those people needed to be apprehended and transferred to The Hague
before the Tribunal could talk about full cooperation from the authorities.
Of the 18 fugitives mentioned,
Hartmann was asked to name those whom the OTP was most interested in at the
moment. Hartmann replied that she had given the names in a weekly briefing in
January, these briefings were all available on the Tribunal’s website.
People should recall that
besides Mladic, who was according to the OTP’s information, in Serbia, there
were also most of the people indicted for Srebrenica including Pandurevic, Beara,
Popovic, Nikolic and Borovcanin. There were others related to the Prijedor case
such as Meakic.
Then there were people who
were sometimes in Bosnia and sometimes in Serbia such as the Lukic brothers.
There were other people as well, most of whom were indicted last century, she
concluded.
A journalist stated that
last March Pierre Prosper, US Ambassador at Large for War Crimes, said that
once Mladic and Sljivancanin were transferred to The Hague, other accused could
be tried in Serbia. Asked to comment on this, Hartmann replied that the OTP
had commented on this issue a long time ago. The priority list of the US in
its relation to Serbia was a US issue on which the Tribunal would not comment.
Mladic was on the priority list of the Tribunal, he had not been arrested. She
added that she had recently heard a minister from the Serbian Government say
that if Mladic was in Serbia he would be arrested as they had done with Sljivancanin
and Radic. She hoped that they would go ahead and do so.
Asked to confirm that the
18 fugitives mentioned were those who were currently in Serbia and Montenegro
or who were travelling in and out of there, Hartmann replied that this was correct.
She added that another fugitive was Gotovina who, according to the news, could
also be in Croatia.
Landale added that, at the
risk of stating the obvious, if an accused did exit the territory of Serbia
and Montenegro, then they would be on someone else’s territory and that State
then had the obligation under international law to apprehend them and transfer
them to The Hague.
*****
|
