Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 11652

1 Friday, 8 November 2002

2 [Open session]

3 --- Upon commencing at 9.32 a.m.

4 [The accused entered court]

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Madam Registrar, please call the case, and let's

6 move.

7 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours. This is the case

8 number, IT-99-36-T, the Prosecutor versus Radoslav Brdjanin.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you.

10 Mr. Brdjanin, good morning to you. Can you hear me in a language

11 that you can understand?

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honours. I can

13 hear you and understand you.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you.

15 Appearances for the Prosecution.

16 MS. KORNER: Joanna Korner, assisted by Denise Gustin case

17 manager. Good morning, Your Honours.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: Good morning to you.

19 Appearances for Mr. Brdjanin.

20 MR. TRBOJEVIC: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honours. Milan

21 Trbojevic, attorney at law; lead counsel, Mr. John Ackerman; and our

22 colleague Marela Jevtovic.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Good morning to you too. Thank you.

24 Any preliminaries?

25 Yes. I recognise Mr. Ackerman.

Page 11653

1 MR. ACKERMAN: I told -- I told Ms. Chuqing there weren't going to

2 be any preliminaries, but I'm just going to tell you this: I'm going to

3 need the same half hour that we had on Monday morning so that we would

4 start at 9.30 to consult with my client.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay.

6 MR. ACKERMAN: And I can explain why we need to if --

7 JUDGE AGIUS: Yeah. But if it's necessary to bring your client a

8 half an hour earlier, it will, you know, make everybody's life easier and

9 it will not take from our sitting time.

10 MR. ACKERMAN: If they're willing to do that, I'm willing to do

11 that too, Your Honour. The -- part of the problem is like -- for

12 instance, yesterday we wanted to consult with him for about 15 minutes and

13 security would not make that possible. They had to move him rather

14 quickly yesterday. And I understand that. I'm not quarreling with

15 security about that. That's what they have to do; they have to do. But

16 it made it necessary for us to consult with him this morning instead of

17 yesterday.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: What we will do, Madam Registrar, please, between

19 now and the end of the sitting, see if on Monday they could bring

20 Mr. Brdjanin half an hour earlier than usual so that Mr. Ackerman can sit

21 down with him at 8.30 -- if it's not possible at 8.30, we'll try quarter

22 to 9.00. But we'll try to keep intact as much as we can the amount of

23 hours we need for the sitting. That's number one.

24 Number two, I went through your response to the Prosecution's

25 motion for judicial notice. I went through it carefully. I -- on a prima

Page 11654

1 facie basis, without, of course, pronouncing myself on the matter. But it

2 seems to me that you may be right --

3 Have you had a look at it, Ms. Korner?

4 MS. KORNER: Your Honour may have noticed I was asking

5 Ms. Gustin. I haven't looked at it. I didn't appreciate that I'd been

6 given a copy of the filing, so I haven't seen it.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: So I will be very succinct. Basically Mr. Ackerman

8 is saying more than one thing, but one of the main things is that it seems

9 to him that most, if not all, of your motion is based on the evidence of

10 six persons. This evidence or the transcript of this evidence is, it

11 seems, not in any way available. He says that he's not actually in a

12 position to respond finally yes or no until or unless he's been put in a

13 position to take notice of -- take cognisance of the contents of --

14 MS. KORNER: Yes.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: And then there is another matter. And I think also

16 prima facie that he is right, that when you ask for judicial notice to be

17 taken of certain facts having taken place in a certain -- taken place in a

18 certain place, as part of the conspiracy of the --

19 MS. KORNER: Joint criminal enterprise.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: Yeah. Criminal enterprise, you're asking two

21 things. You're mixing facts with a legal connotation. Whether they are a

22 matter -- whether they form part of the criminal enterprise is as the

23 legal matter -- he draws the parallel line with other instances where the

24 question of whether there was an international conflict in Bosnia was a

25 fact or whether it was also a point of law.

Page 11655

1 MS. KORNER: No. It's a legal conclusion from a set of facts.

2 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, exactly. So I would suggest to you that you

3 look at his response in the light of what I have just said and we'll

4 revisit the matter first thing on Monday.

5 MS. KORNER: Yes. I can very quickly tell you on the problem

6 with -- we wouldn't have the slightest objection giving him the

7 transcripts, although I think Rule 94 was meant to do away with all this

8 necessity if there'd have been a finding. Is that all of them are -- were

9 protected, I think, in the Tadic trial, and therefore we'd need to apply

10 to President Jorda for permission to release under 75, Rule 75, before we

11 can give them to another Defence counsel. And with the greatest respect

12 to the President, who I have no doubt is a very busy man, it seems to take

13 forever to get these motions answered, because we had to do a number of

14 them which arose from Tadic. But that's what I foresee is the problem.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: Today is not the right day to file such a -- but if

16 you file it Monday, I think I will do my best to have it responded to as

17 early as possible.

18 MS. KORNER: Well, Your Honour, then I'll make arrangements for

19 that.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you. Because I think once Mr. Ackerman

21 has got access to those -- to the transcript of those six witnesses, he

22 also leaves all doors open in the sense that it may well be that having

23 gone through these transcripts, he -- he may enter in non-opposition later

24 on. So the options are -- the option is there and let's take advantage of

25 that.

Page 11656

1 MS. KORNER: You Honour -- I'll tell Your Honour quite off --

2 straight off that the reason we -- otherwise we could have applied to put

3 the transcripts in under Rule 92, but our attitude has been that it would

4 be wrong to try to put transcripts in of witnesses we know cannot or will

5 not testify for cross-examination. So that's the reason.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Anyway, shall -- anything else before we

7 proceed, move into a closed session?

8 Madam Registrar -- Madam Usher, closed session, please.

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6 [Open session]

7 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes. Before we pack up for the weekend, I just

8 wanted to express my gratitude and that of the other two Judges on this

9 Trial Chamber to all of you, interpreters and technicians and staff of all

10 sorts for having overstayed by more than 20 minutes. I appreciate that.

11 As a result of that, you have saved the Tribunal some of its resources. I

12 thank you.

13 Monday here, I think, 9.00.

14 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned

15 at 2.07 p.m., to be reconvened on Monday,

16 the 11th day of November, 2002, at 9.00 a.m.

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