051025SC

Page 36

1 Tuesday, 25 October 2005

2 [Status Conference]

3 [Open session]

4 [Accused not present]

5 --- Upon commencing at 2.16 p.m.

6 JUDGE THELIN: Good afternoon, all. Could we please have the --

7 well, the case is called so we don't need to do that again, I guess.

8 Well, the Registrar, please.

9 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, thank you, Your Honour. Case number

10 IT-04-79-PT, the Prosecutor versus Mico Stanisic.

11 JUDGE THELIN: And we see that the Prosecution is represented

12 today, as the last time, with Mrs. Anna Richterova; is that correct?

13 MS. RICHTEROVA: Yes, good morning -- it's afternoon. Good

14 afternoon, Your Honour, Anna Richterova for the Prosecution, assisted by

15 Hasan Younis, case manager.

16 JUDGE THELIN: Thank you.

17 And Mr. Branko Lukic for the Defence?

18 MR. LUKIC: That's correct, Your Honour.

19 JUDGE THELIN: Well, this is, as you are well aware, the second

20 status conference. The last one we had was on the 6th of July and the

21 parties are well aware of the rationale behind the Rules prescribing the

22 Status Conference in order to expedite and facilitate the case and in this

23 case, since the Accused, Mr. Stanisic, is on provisional release we are to

24 assume that his conditions are as well as could be hoped for.

25 We, I note, do not, as the Chamber sees it, have any outstanding

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1 or pending motions and, seeing the nods I get from both sides, that your

2 accord agrees with mine. What we do have now is obviously the phase of

3 disclosure and, as noted last time, the Prosecution has duly fulfilled its

4 obligation in the 30 day disclosure, i.e., the Rule 66(A)(i) material.

5 Since there was a matter whether this was done in the proper form, we just

6 note that the Chamber on the 1st of July, in its decision noted that this

7 material was duly disclosed but now we enter the phase of the more

8 burdensome disclosure, i.e. the -- on the Prosecution to reveal copies of

9 all statements from witnesses which the Prosecution wishes to bring to the

10 trial. And in conjunction also, the ongoing obligation for exculpatory

11 material, be it in written form or in the electronic disclosure system.

12 Before I ask where we are on this, because I'm interested to know

13 how far we have advanced, I'd just like to remind the parties that we do,

14 as was adopted at the last Status Conference, a work plan. It was

15 discussed with the parties, agreed by them, and decided by me, whereby all

16 disclosure from the part of the Prosecution should be done by April 2006,

17 and at the same time, we should also try to come to an agreement as to

18 agreed facts.

19 Now, I'm well aware that this is a time limit that will give the

20 Prosecution an opportunity to fulfil it. However, I would like to avoid a

21 situation whereby everything is disclosed at the same time as close to the

22 time limit as possible. This will not be, I would say, unwanted -- sorry,

23 wanted by the Defence. So ideally, obviously, the time should be used by

24 the Prosecution in order to spread out the disclosure in such a way that

25 the Defence would be able to absorb it.

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1 And now to my question: Where are we on the Prosecution side with

2 the disclosure on this? And would it, as a second question, be possible

3 to disclose amount of the witnesses that the Prosecution now envisage to

4 bring to the trial?

5 MS. RICHTEROVA: Your Honour, we have indeed spread out our

6 disclosures. On the 6th of October we have disclosed Rule 68 material

7 which was disclosed on 5th of October, and we are preparing for

8 disclosure, we are preparing the witness statements, the additional

9 witness statements, so we are in position to say that we will meet the

10 time limit prescribed by the Judge.

11 JUDGE THELIN: And my question now as to if you can envisage now

12 the totality of the witnesses that you seek to bring to the trial? I

13 mean, I'm not holding you to a figure here. I just want to see what we

14 are to anticipate.

15 MS. RICHTEROVA: Your Honour, we are trying to do our best that we

16 wouldn't bring too many witnesses. It will depend on the agreement

17 between the Prosecution and the Defence, whether we would be able to

18 tender some witness statements under Rule 92 bis and whether there will be

19 some agreed facts. It all depends on the agreement.

20 JUDGE THELIN: And I take it you're reluctant to give any number

21 today?

22 MS. RICHTEROVA: It's not reluctance but I'm really not able to

23 say any number today.

24 JUDGE THELIN: Thank you. I will not press you any further on

25 this point. Thank you. Do you have any comments on the Defence side on

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1 this or does it accord with your assessment?

2 MR. LUKIC: I have to say that until now, the Defence has

3 excellent cooperation with the Prosecution, specially with Ms. Richterova

4 and Mr. Younis. Mr. Younis is knowledgeable and helpful but we'll see at

5 the end, we hope that we won't get majority of materials too late.

6 Sometimes it happens that the Defence gets those materials seven or 15

7 days prior to trial and we are hopeful that it won't happen in this case.

8 Otherwise, for now, we are getting new materials but we cannot

9 estimate is it all, part, small part. That's really up to the Prosecution

10 for now.

11 JUDGE THELIN: Thank you. I take encouragement by that but I

12 would also like to remind obviously that it comes to the matter of agreed

13 fact a lot of incumbent on the Defence in order to try to make the most of

14 what your case and your client would allow in order to reach a great as

15 possible agreement on the underlying basic facts. We don't have to burden

16 from the Prosecution's point of view the trial with that. So I encourage

17 you to continue in that spirit, Mr. Lukic.

18 On this point, I don't think that we have anything further to deal

19 with.

20 Would there be any other matters that the parties envisage that

21 they would like to raise at this point?

22 MS. RICHTEROVA: No, Your Honour, nothing that we would like to

23 raise.

24 MR. LUKIC: Nothing on the Defence side, Your Honour.

25 JUDGE THELIN: Thank you very much. It means that the Status

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1 Conference will be next held according to the sequence in 120 days which

2 brings us to sometime in February. With that, this session is now over.

3 The Court stands adjourned.

4 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 2.25 p.m.