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1 Wednesday, 11 March 2009
2 [Status Conference]
3 [Open session]
4 [The accused entered court]
5 --- Upon commencing at 4.28 p.m.
6 JUDGE POCAR: Good afternoon, everybody.
7 Mr. Registrar, would you please call the case.
8 THE REGISTRAR: Good afternoon, Your Honour. Good afternoon to
9 everyone in the courtroom. This is case number IT-98-29/1-A, The
10 Prosecutor versus Dragomir Milosevic.
11 JUDGE POCAR: I thank you.
12 May I now have appearances of parties. For the Defence.
13 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Your Honour. I
14 am Branislav Tapuskovic, Attorney-at-Law from Belgrade, and I appear on
15 behalf of the Defence of Dragomir Milosevic.
16 JUDGE POCAR: I thank you.
17 For the Prosecution.
18 MS. GOY: Good afternoon, Your Honour. Barbara Goy, appearing
19 for the Prosecution, together with Francois Boudreault, and our Case
20 Manager, Alma Imamovic-Ivanov.
21 JUDGE POCAR: I thank you.
22 Before we start, may I turn to Mr. Milosevic and ask if he can
23 hear the proceedings in a language he understands? Is everything correct
24 with interpretation?
25 THE APPELLANT: [Interpretation] Everything is all right,
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1 Mr. Presiding Judge. Your Honour, everything is okay.
2 JUDGE POCAR: Thank you.
3 Now, this Conference, Status Conference, is called in accordance
4 with Rule 65 bis of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the Tribunal.
5 The purpose of the Status Conference, as you know, is to allow persons in
6 custody pending appeal an opportunity to raise issues, in relation to
7 questions, health question especially, or detention questions, including
8 the physical and mental condition of the person detained.
9 The previous Status Conference took place on 24 November 2008.
10 So I would like at first to inquire into the status, the condition of
11 detentions, the health conditions of Mr. Milosevic.
12 Mr. Milosevic, if you have any concern in relation to the
13 detention conditions or your state of health, I would invite you to raise
14 these questions now, and, of course, if you wish, this discussion, if you
15 have anything to raise, may take place in private session. So if you
16 have questions that you believe should be dealt with in private session,
17 please tell before -- before raising the issues.
18 THE APPELLANT: [Interpretation] Your Honour, thank you for asking
19 me these questions. I am glad that I have the opportunity to raise these
20 concerns and to have this opportunity to say something generally
21 speaking.
22 But there is no need for me to raise any issues. There are no
23 situations which require any attention or solving. Namely, everything
24 which unfolds in the life of the detainees is possible to address with
25 the people in charge of the detention unit.
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1 So I have no problems whatsoever in regard to my stay in the
2 detention unit, and I do not have any problems either with my general
3 health condition, either mental or physical. Therefore, everything is
4 all right, and I thank you.
5 JUDGE POCAR: I thank you, Mr. Milosevic.
6 So there is no question to be dealt with in that respect.
7 Let me -- you can be seated, Mr. Milosevic.
8 THE APPELLANT: [Interpretation] Thank you.
9 JUDGE POCAR: I would like now to briefly recount the recent
10 procedural history of the case.
11 As we already noted in the last Status Conference, the briefings
12 as to the appeals of the Prosecution and of Mr. Milosevic are completed.
13 So there is -- there should be nothing in this respect.
14 There was a confidential motion filed by Mr. Milosevic, seeking
15 the admission of additional evidence, pursuant to Rule 115 of the Rules.
16 The Appeals Chamber rendered its decision on 20 January 2009, whereby it
17 dismissed the motion and filed the Appellant if he so wished to file
18 within 30 days an amended motion on the basis of the standards pointed
19 out in the decision. And, accordingly, on 19 February 2009, counsel for
20 Mr. Milosevic filed a further confidential motion to present additional
21 evidence pursuant to Rule 115. A response from the Prosecution if any is
22 due by 23 March 2009
23 days after the Prosecution reply and, of course, the Appeals Chamber will
24 deal with that motion in due course.
25 Is there anything in this respect, to be raised? I believe -- I
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1 don't see any -- I want to observe something myself, and that is, that
2 both the Defence notice of appeal and the Defence brief in reply are only
3 available in their confidential versions, has been filed confidentially.
4 Now, I would want to remind the parties that all submissions
5 filed before the Tribunal shall be public unless there are exceptional
6 reasons for keeping them confidential, and that the parties had to file
7 public redacted versions of all confidential briefs filed on appeal.
8 Therefore, I would like here to request the counsel for Mr. Milosevic to
9 provide the Tribunal with public redacted versions of the said Defence
10 submissions, pending before the Appeals Chamber, and to proceed in the
11 same way when filing any future, any other confidential submissions,
12 where appropriate.
13 So we expect to receive this -- these redacted versions as
14 appropriate and within the necessary time. I don't put any deadline for
15 that, but as soon as possible.
16 As to the scheduling of the appeal hearing in this case - as I
17 mentioned already at the last Status Conference - I anticipate that the
18 appeal hearing in this case will take place within the next few months
19 prior to the summer recess, but at this stage the Appeals Chamber is not
20 in a position to provide further details as to the possible dates. There
21 will be the -- the motion on additional evidence to be decided, and so we
22 will see according to the consideration of that motion when the Appeals
23 Chamber will be able to set a precise date for the appeal hearing and, of
24 course, the parties will be informed of the appropriate date.
25 Well, at this point, I would like that ask the parties whether
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1 they have any other issue to raise at this stage, at this time.
2 Is there any issue that the Prosecution would like to raise at
3 this point?
4 MS. GOY: Your Honour, just in relation to the hearing date. And
5 we would appreciate if we could be informed at least six weeks prior to
6 the hearing given that counsel working on this case are also working on
7 other cases on appeal, so this would greatly facilitate our planning if
8 this was possible. Thank you.
9 JUDGE POCAR: Well, I can't give any precise -- you said six
10 weeks, I can't give you a precise date, but certainly the appeal hearing
11 will be scheduled with -- with -- largely on time to prepare for the
12 hearing. So I will take that in mind.
13 Anything that counsel for Mr. Milosevic would like to raise at
14 this point?
15 MR. TAPUSKOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, nothing specific.
16 It is, of course, very important for us in the Defence to know at least
17 roughly when the hearing date will be. I believe that you have given us
18 clear information in that regard.
19 There's another thing which I wish to emphasise. A days ago we
20 received a statement of a witness that we didn't have before, and some 15
21 days prior to that we also received some other pieces of evidence which
22 might be of interest to the Defence. So I'm not saying that we shall ask
23 in the spirit of Rule 115 for some additional evidence to be tendered
24 into the case file. We shall make a decision on that very quickly, and
25 shall inform the Chamber accordingly; namely, whether we will insist on
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1 the tendering of some pieces of evidence that we recently received, some
2 of which we only got a couple of days ago.
3 So this is the announcement I wish to make, but we still haven't
4 made a definitive decision and this is all I had to say at this point.
5 Thank you.
6 JUDGE POCAR: I thank you, Mr. Tapuskovic, for giving us this
7 information. Of course, you will assess the evidence, this material, and
8 see whether you want to submit an additional 115 motion to that effect.
9 It's up to you. And I believe you will do it as soon as possible, in
10 order not to delay the appeal. But it's up to you, of course, to
11 consider the -- whether it is appropriate to tender this evidence or not.
12 Well, if there is no other business, no other issues, I think
13 that we can conclude our hearing.
14 I thank the parties for their attendance and call this hearing to
15 a close.
16 --- Whereupon the Status Conference adjourned
17 at 4.42 p.m.
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