Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 11034

1 Tuesday, 29 October 2002

2 [Open session]

3 --- Upon commencing at 2.18 p.m.

4 [The accused entered court]

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. Madam Registrar, could we call the case,

6 please.

7 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honour. Good afternoon, Your Honours.

8 And this is the case number, IT-99-36-T, the Prosecutor versus Radoslav

9 Brdjanin.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you.

11 Mr. Brdjanin, can you hear me in a language that you can

12 understand?

13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Your Honour. Yes, I

14 can hear you and I understand.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you. Good afternoon to you.

16 Appearances for the Prosecution.

17 MS. RICHTEROVA: Good afternoon, Your Honours. Anna Richterova,

18 and Ann Sutherland for the Prosecution, assisted by Denise Gustin.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you, and good afternoon to you.

20 Appearances for Mr. Brdjanin.

21 MR. ACKERMAN: Good afternoon, Your Honours. I'm John Ackerman.

22 I'm here with Milan Trbojevic, my co-counsel, and Marela Jevtovic.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: And I suppose -- good afternoon to you.

24 I suppose -- I would suggest to you to ask Mr. Rohde to furnish

25 your co-counsel with some kind of a bag which is not an Albert Heijn

Page 11035

1 one.

2 Yes. I understand that there are some preliminaries.

3 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, I just -- I wanted to show you these

4 tapes that are sitting here.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes.

6 MR. ACKERMAN: This is about half of the tapes from the Stakic

7 case that my client has to listen to. They are -- they're roughly two

8 hours each. Just for one witness, there are 12 of them. It will take him

9 24 hours just to listen to one witness in this. There are some more over

10 there.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: May I --

12 Usher, could you bring me one of those tapes, please.

13 These are all 90-minute tapes.

14 MR. ACKERMAN: I'm sorry. I was looking at those. These are all

15 120s. I assumed they were all the same. You're right. These are 90s.

16 But these are all 120s. And the --

17 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Ackerman, now, when you sit down, please work it

18 out and give me the total number of hours. What I would also like to

19 know -- usually -- I mean, the technicians should be in a position to tell

20 me this. When we see a tape like that, I understand that bundle that you

21 showed me that -- are in -- tied with a rubber band because they refer to

22 the same witness?

23 MR. ACKERMAN: Yeah. This would be one witness, Your Honour.

24 JUDGE AGIUS: That would be one witness. So I would presume that

25 those tapes with perhaps the last tape would be full, complete.

Page 11036

1 MR. ACKERMAN: I don't want to represent that the tapes are all

2 completely full and I certainly don't have time to listen to them so see

3 that they are. But I assume that they use them with some efficiency

4 and put as much on them as they can before--

5 JUDGE AGIUS: But once you have finished with this submission I

6 would like you to sit down and perhaps you or one of your colleagues could

7 work out what were talking about precisely -- to be precise.

8 MR. ACKERMAN: I have to -- I have quite a stack of them at my

9 office too.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: As well.

11 MR. ACKERMAN: Yeah, as well. These were just -- these, I got

12 today. Those are part of the ones that we got last week. But these were

13 just delivered today.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: I can't see the others because they are hidden

15 behind the monitor.

16 MR. ACKERMAN: Now, these -- these are all 120s here, so that's

17 the stack there.

18 In addition, Your Honour, since -- since we were in court last

19 Thursday, I think I have received -- and I -- I tell you that I have not

20 wasted time counting pages, but I think that we've received an additional

21 discovery material regarding the Prijedor phase of this case about another

22 3.000 pages. The estimate that you heard Thursday, that the material that

23 I had to deal with was around 2500 pages was just wildly wrong. One

24 witness is nearly 2500 pages, just one of the witnesses all by himself.

25 The Registry allows in terms of payment two minutes per page for reading

Page 11037

1 material. And as you know, mere reading is not what I do. I have to

2 prepare a cross-examination. So not only do I have to read the material,

3 but then I have to compare it with other material and go through that

4 process of preparing cross, which I suggest to you probably takes a little

5 more than two minutes per page. Maybe not a lot, because I actually read

6 faster than two minutes a page.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: And some pages you skim through obviously.

8 MR. ACKERMAN: But if you just figure it out at two minutes per

9 page, on the material that we've received since last Thursday, it's a

10 hundred hours work, and that's all new stuff that we didn't have when I

11 spoke to you on Thursday about the problem.

12 I think -- and all I can do is give you the best estimate. There

13 are -- I know that in all of the witness material that we have, there are

14 approximately 40.000 pages of material, because it's scanned and the

15 computer tells me how many pages are in there. Prijedor, I think,

16 represents about 25 per cent of that. So if that's correct, there are

17 about 10.000 pages of Prijedor material plus --

18 JUDGE AGIUS: Yeah. But what I am more interested in,

19 Mr. Ackerman, is the new material, what you have had for the past months,

20 please don't include in this whole presentation.

21 MR. ACKERMAN: Well, the new material, Your Honour, is --

22 JUDGE AGIUS: For the time being. I mean --

23 MR. ACKERMAN: This is Stakic. The new material is primarily

24 Stakic and exhibits associated with Stakic. And that's going to represent

25 with regard to --

Page 11038

1 JUDGE AGIUS: Sorry to interrupt you again, but I suppose that

2 some, if not most, of the material presented in Stakic was already in your

3 possession.

4 MR. ACKERMAN: Very recently. It -- I haven't had it -- I haven't

5 had much of it very long. Some of it we've had for a while, but a lot of

6 it has just been provided to us recently. And today there is this that

7 was handed. This is additional Prijedor material. In my locker

8 downstairs there are two envelopes this thick that I understand are

9 additional Prijedor material. And, you know, Your Honour, if it was 2500

10 pages, like you may have thought last Thursday, I wouldn't have a thing in

11 the world to complain about. But it's a great deal more than that -- I

12 mean a really great deal more than that. And when you are handed the

13 transcripts for Witness 7.45, it -- it took me four days to read those.

14 And I went through -- I was doing it and making notes at the time, so

15 you'll get through it faster than four days, but it will take you two or

16 three, I bet. They're huge. This material is just overwhelming.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: Is Ms. Korner in the building or not?

18 MS. RICHTEROVA: No, Ms. Korner won't be here till Monday.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: There are some things that I'm going to propose.

20 Number one is a meeting early next week with Mr. Rohde. This will be in

21 my Chambers, for you Mr. Ackerman, for Ms. Korner, and Mr. Rohde from the

22 office. Be prepared -- and I will convene the meeting once you have more

23 or less articulated this out, and be in a position to present it in a way

24 that makes a case. Right? Then I promise you my help. That, I suppose,

25 should be held -- that meeting should be held when Ms. Korner is here,

Page 11039

1 because I suppose -- no offence meant to either of you, but I think she is

2 more familiar with the -- what has been disclosed and handed over. If you

3 are, then tell me.

4 MS. RICHTEROVA: In fact, I am pretty well familiar with what was

5 disclosed, because I am the person responsible --

6 JUDGE AGIUS: In charge of Prijedor?

7 MS. RICHTEROVA: Not in charge of Prijedor but generally

8 for disclosure, so I am familiar with material which was disclosed.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: So -- that's even better. So I will combine my

10 skills of a diplomat with those of a jurist and suggest to you that

11 between now and when we have this meeting, please find time to sit down

12 together. I want you to be honest with each other and together with the

13 Trial Chamber, who can then help both of you to make sure that this is a

14 fair trial.

15 What I would like you to do is: Mr. Ackerman will sort out what

16 he has to deal with. He and his colleagues, plus then what his client has

17 to deal with, because if these are tapes that Mr. Brdjanin has to listen

18 to, then obviously we have to take that into consideration. It doesn't

19 mean to say that I would expect him to listen to all those tapes before we

20 move. We will take it as we go along one witness after the other. And

21 therefore, we would need to plan accordingly. But if the number of hours

22 that are being made available payment-wise to the Defence team is not

23 sufficient, then we will have to do something about it and we will

24 intervene. However, we will need and require from you a properly

25 articulated statement indicating exactly what is involved here before we

Page 11040

1 can make any representations ourselves.

2 As far as you are concerned, Madam Richterova, what I would like

3 you to do is to sit down with Mr. Ackerman and then come back to us

4 explaining exactly what was disclosed and when. We are particularly

5 interested in the volume of recent disclosures, recent disclosures.

6 MS. RICHTEROVA: It can be done very easily because we have

7 records of all our disclosures with dates.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. So what I would like from you is this: That

9 we have a list of witnesses for Prijedor, and starting with -- forget the

10 next one, because the next one I would imagine we will start with today.

11 No? Or today or tomorrow. So forget the next one, the 7.178. Start with

12 7.185. And you go down chronologically or -- as you have presented them

13 in this order of witnesses, which is dated 15th of October. If you are

14 revising this, then please refer to a revised version.

15 What I would like you to do is this: 7.185, then what I would

16 like is information as to when the supporting material was disclosed. If

17 this is going to be a Rule 92 witness, for example, because this person

18 may have given testimony, evidence, in Stakic or in some other case, then

19 please indicate -- I know that Ms. Gustin is going to have to do this

20 probably. No? Please indicate to me that this is going to be a Rule

21 92 -- material for Rule 92 was disclosed on such and such a day, and it

22 involves two tapes, three tapes, 100 pages, 200 page, 1.000 pages, et

23 cetera. Because if, as Mr. Ackerman suggested, there is one witness, for

24 example, whose testimony runs into -- into thousands -- did I read you

25 well?

Page 11041

1 MR. ACKERMAN: I think the material for one of the witnesses, Your

2 Honour, exceeds 2.000 pages. But I really want to emphasise that I'm just

3 guessing, because I have not counted the pages.

4 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. All right. But --

5 MR. ACKERMAN: I want to make that really clear to you.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: Exactly. I mean, I can quite understand that there

7 could be problems, but I want to make sure that if there is a problem,

8 what is the extent of this problem. And then we will sit together, if

9 necessary, in public session, if necessary, and with Mr. Rohde privately

10 in my chambers to see exactly how best to proceed. And then we will

11 report later on in an open session.

12 MR. ACKERMAN: I will tell you that I -- that I actually had a

13 meeting with Mr. Rohde about this problem and the hours that it was going

14 to require, and he told me that he would -- he would likely approve up to

15 175 out-of-court hours a month. I will tell you that I am at 245 for this

16 month right now, so I hunch that I am here as a volunteer for the United

17 Nations and I'm not particularly willing to --

18 JUDGE AGIUS: But don't expect any monuments or any medals,

19 Mr. Ackerman. You will -- I never got any and you won't get any.

20 So let's leave it at that for the time being. I think you do a

21 bit of homework, taking some of these 245 hours that you probably are --

22 that are probably haunting you. I'm pretty sure that Madam Richterova and

23 her colleagues are going to find the time too, to outline this for me, and

24 then we will plan accordingly. What I can promise you is that we will try

25 to make some sense out of this apparent mess.

Page 11042

1 Yes, Ms. Sutherland.

2 MS. SUTHERLAND: Your Honour, can I just clarify a couple of

3 things. In relation to the page length that Mr. Ackerman gave, 2.500,

4 that Ms. Korner spoke about last week. That figure, I think, she got from

5 myself and that was in answer to a question as to the amount of material

6 that we will be submitting to the Court --

7 JUDGE AGIUS: But we asked the same question ourselves, and that

8 was what we were told. That was even before the sitting.

9 MS. SUTHERLAND: Yes. But that was me working out on the

10 assumption that we were going to submit one transcript because that was

11 what had been decided -- one transcript for each of these witnesses who

12 had -- may have testified in multiple trials previously. And so of course

13 that figure would then balloon out, because I spoke with Mr. Ackerman

14 yesterday and he wants every transcript -- prior transcript of the

15 witnesses to be admitted pursuant to Rule 92 bis. And of course that

16 wasn't my understanding when I gave Ms. Korner the figure last week. So I

17 just wanted to clarify that point.

18 Also, just if I may, before we deal with it in -- next week, just

19 in relation to the Prijedor evidence, obviously most of the disclosure

20 will have been recent because the Stakic trial only began in April and

21 only finished in September. And I think for the majority of the

22 witnesses, once we obtain permission from the Court, which was on an going

23 basis, we disclosed the hard copy of the transcripts. Obviously the tapes

24 have only recently been disclosed because they've just only been finished

25 by the people who have been listening to them.

Page 11043

1 And in relation to the witness list, there is going to be a change

2 in the order of witnesses and we were going to provide Your Honours and

3 Mr. Ackerman with a new list on Thursday once we had confirmation of a

4 change in the order. We are trying to accommodate Mr. Ackerman's request

5 that we don't have two big witnesses back to back, and so we contacted two

6 witnesses yesterday and asked if they would swap. And after we got that

7 confirmation, today or tomorrow we were going to provide an updated list.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: Exactly. And what I want you to understand, and I'm

9 pretty sure you understand it very clearly, is that the system -- these

10 trials in this Tribunal proceed is pretty much unique. It's completely

11 different to what we are used to at home. I mean, the factor of ongoing

12 disclosure in the course of the trial and ongoing disclosures of the

13 extent and of the volume that we are talking about, when we are supposed

14 to start hearing and when we have actually started hearing the evidence in

15 that particular municipality is of concern. It's -- you ought to compare

16 it with an ordinary trial by jury or whatever in your own jurisdiction

17 where all of a sudden a new document comes up, a simple new document. If

18 the Defence is taken by surprise or if the Prosecution is taken by

19 surprise, usually you ask for time and time is granted. That's no major

20 big deal in an ordinary trial in our jurisdiction. But over here it can

21 create big problems. And I want to make sure when I go to bed, to sleep

22 at night, that I go to sleep with my conscience clear, knowing that I am,

23 together with my two colleagues, conducting a fair trial. If I have

24 doubts, any doubts, I will stop. All right? So that is the -- that is

25 the position.

Page 11044

1 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, let me just --

2 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, I have yes, Mr. Ackerman.

3 MR. ACKERMAN: Let me add one more thing: The Chamber needs to

4 know that the Prosecution and I are working together trying to make this

5 thing work. I suppose I've talked with Ms. Sutherland two or three times

6 a day since Saturday about various matters. And what you just heard from

7 her is an example of what we're trying to do to make it work.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes.

9 MR. ACKERMAN: They had scheduled two very, very large witnesses

10 that requires huge preparation back to back, and that would have caused me

11 to ask you for time, and I suggested that if they separated those two

12 witnesses, that we could probably work through it and not have to do

13 that. And they agreed and as you just heard they're trying to accomplish

14 that. So please understand, the Trial Chamber, that we are both working

15 to make this happen. And I don't think anybody here is trying to thwart

16 the continuation of this case. We're trying to keep it going.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: That doesn't cross my mind. I mean at no time did I

18 suggest that I was suspecting that. I hope that you have not understood

19 in any case -- in any way that I was hinting at that. I'm pretty sure, as

20 I have always stated -- I'm pretty convinced of the good faith and

21 well-meaning of both of you.

22 So can we bring in the witness now.

23 Yes. We'll go into closed session first, please.

24 [Closed session]

25 [redacted]

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10 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned

11 at 6.37 p.m., to be reconvened on Wednesday,

12 the 30th day of October, 2002, at 2.15 p.m.

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