130904SC

Page 697

1 Wednesday, 4 September 2013

2 [Status Conference]

3 [Open session]

4 [The appellants entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 3.29 p.m.

6 JUDGE LIU: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

7 Registrar, would you please call the case, please.

8 THE REGISTRAR: Good afternoon, Your Honour.

9 This is case IT-05-87-A, the Prosecutor versus Nikola Sainovic,

10 Nebojsa Pavkovic, Vladimir Lazarevic, and Sreten Lukic.

11 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.

12 May I now please have the appearances of the parties. First, the

13 Prosecution.

14 MR. MacDONALD: Good afternoon, Your Honour.

15 Jonathan MacDonald and Kyle Wood on behalf of the Prosecution and

16 our Case Manager Colin Nawrot.

17 JUDGE LIU: Thank you. And now Defence counsel, please.

18 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Mr. President. My

19 name is Toma Fila, representing Nikola Sainovic. Thank you.

20 MR. ALEKSIC: [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Your Honour.

21 Aleksandar Aleksic representing the Defence of Mr. Pavkovic.

22 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Your Honour.

23 Mihajlo Bakrac, representing General Lazarevic.

24 MR. IVETIC: Good afternoon, Your Honour. Lead counsel

25 Branko Lukic and co-counsel Dragan Ivetic representing Mr. Sretan Lukic.

Page 698

1 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much.

2 Before we start, can all the parties hear the proceedings in a

3 language that they understand?

4 Yes, Mr. Sainovic.

5 THE APPELLANT SAINOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour. I can

6 follow.

7 THE APPELLANT PAVKOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour. I can

8 follow.

9 THE APPELLANT LAZAREVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour.

10 THE APPELLANT LUKIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour.

11 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much. This Status Conference is

12 called in accordance with Rule 65 bis (B) of the Rules of Procedure and

13 Evidence of the Tribunal. This requires a Status Conference to be

14 convened every 120 days during the appeal proceedings to allow any person

15 in custody pending appeal the opportunity to raise issues in relation

16 thereto, including the mental and the physical condition of that person.

17 In the present case, the last Status Conference was held on the 13th May,

18 2013. Today's Status Conference was scheduled by an order issued 11 July

19 2013.

20 First, I would like to inquire into the status of the detention

21 conditions and the health situation of the appellants. If you have any

22 concerns in relation to the detention conditions, or your state of health

23 that cannot be resolved through the standard procedures, I would invite

24 you to raise them now. If you wish, this discussion can take place in

25 private session.

Page 699

1 Yes, yes, Mr. Lazarevic.

2 THE APPELLANT LAZAREVIC: [Interpretation] Mr. President, thank

3 you for giving me the floor today.

4 Allow me to inform you briefly in a couple of sentences about my

5 health; namely, my dental health and the news between these two Status

6 Conferences to update you.

7 Five months ago, the people in charge of my medical care rejected

8 the request of my Defence to finally successfully resolve, after five

9 years, the very complex problems of my dental health by putting in

10 implants and fixed dentures. They have decided, for the seventh time in

11 five years, to try to put in mobile dentures in my upper and lower jaw,

12 trying to do the impossible.

13 During our last Status Conferences and immediately prior to that,

14 there was a glimmer of hope that there could perhaps be a more successful

15 way of treating my dental problems. Even the president of the Tribunal,

16 the esteemed Judge Meron showed interest in resolving my health issues,

17 showed interest in my health condition by issuing two written decisions

18 in mid-July. The medical services in charge of my health in the

19 Detention Unit spent one month and a half working on this, and on the 2nd

20 of July of this year I was given the seventh dentures for the upper jaw

21 and for the first time for the lower jaw, which in the meantime suffered

22 further degradation. I said way back a year ago that in five years I be

23 reduced to just six teeth in my jaw.

24 The new dentures given to me for my upper jaw is somewhat of an

25 improvement in relation to the previous dentures, and I continue wearing

Page 700

1 it but only to improve my pronunciation. That is the only use I have of

2 it. I cannot use it for its basic purpose, which is to process food.

3 The dentures for the lower jaw I could only wear for a maximum of a

4 couple of hours at the time, since it was given to me on the 2nd of July.

5 This piece of dentures also cannot be used when eating. Two adjustments

6 were made but did not yield any results; that is to say, that in the past

7 four months, the measures taken by the medical services produced no

8 results, no satisfactory results in treating my seriously deteriorating

9 dental health. As to what is going to happen next, I truly don't know.

10 What do I and my Defence need to do next is, again, a question that I

11 have no answer to.

12 Mr. President, in order to portray the seriousness and the

13 dramatic state of this health issue of mine, which has been going on for

14 a very long time, please allow me to quote the evaluation of a competent

15 medical expert. In a medical article published recently, this person

16 wrote about the correlation between a proper nutrition, dental health,

17 and the so-called inflammatory disease of the abdominal tract. All of

18 these conditions are present in my case, they are chronic and have been

19 going on for a long time.

20 The article I'm quoting is an article written by one of the top

21 specialists in the south-east Europe, an expert who is an oncologist and

22 a gastroenterologist and works at the military medical academy in

23 Belgrade, in Serbia, Professor Dino Tarabar. This specialist is familiar

24 with my medical issues, and we got to know each other in June of last

25 year when he was a member of the medical team from Serbia who examined

Page 701

1 me.

2 Now speaking about this correlation between dental health and

3 proper nutrition as well as the inflammatory disease of the gut, says the

4 following: That this condition cannot be treated with the current

5 therapy that I'm receiving. So Professor Dino Tarabar, when speaking of

6 this correlation says that: "Nutrition and food taken in orally in these

7 kinds of conditions is extremely important. A patient has to chew all

8 pieces of food until they become liquid and only then swallow them."

9 This professional medical opinion is something that I fully

10 understand. Unfortunately, I don't know who is going to assist me in

11 ensuring that I can do that so that I reach the state of a stable

12 remission, a state of illness which would be bearable for a detainee such

13 as myself.

14 Mr. President, that's all I had to say. Thank you for your

15 attention and understanding. Thank you, again.

16 JUDGE LIU: Thank you, Mr. Lazarevic. I take note of your

17 submissions. As I have recalled on several occasions, according to the

18 Rule 1881 of the detention rules where a detainee is not satisfied with

19 the condition of his and her detention, he or she is entitled to make a

20 complaint to the commanding officer or his representative at any time.

21 And in case of an unsatisfactory response to make a written complaint,

22 without censorship, to the Registrar who shall inform the president. I

23 myself also take into account your submissions today. We'll see what we

24 could do in this aspect.

25 Are there any other persons who would like to make some

Page 702

1 submissions? It seems to me none.

2 Before we turn to any issue that parties may wish to raise, I

3 would like to briefly mentioned one outstanding matter. On 15th of

4 February, 2010, Mr. Lazarevic confidentially filed his reply brief in

5 this case. As far as I'm aware, no public redacted version of his -- of

6 this document has been filed. Accordingly, in my capacity as

7 Presiding Judge, I hereby instruct Mr. Lazarevic to file a public

8 redacted version of his reply brief no later than 15 October, 2013.

9 Regarding any confidential information requiring redaction, I

10 authorise Mr. Lazarevic consult the relevant decisions rendered in the

11 present case including the decision under Prosecution's motion concerning

12 confidential information on Lazarevic's public submission, dated 31st

13 March, 2010, and the decision under Prosecution's Second Motion regarding

14 confidential information in Lazarevic's public submission dated 1st of

15 June, 2010.

16 At this point, I would like to ask the parties whether they have

17 any other issues that they would like to raise.

18 Is there any issue that Prosecution would like to raise?

19 MR. MacDONALD: The Prosecution has no issues to raise,

20 Your Honour. I'm obliged.

21 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much. Now I turn to counsel for

22 Mr. Sainovic.

23 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Thank you. Nothing. We have nothing.

24 JUDGE LIU: Thank you. The counsel for Mr. Pavkovic.

25 MR. ALEKSIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour. We have

Page 703

1 nothing either.

2 JUDGE LIU: Counsel for Mr. Lazarevic.

3 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, we have nothing and my

4 apologies for the omission that our Defence made with respect to the

5 redacted version of the reply brief.

6 JUDGE LIU: Thank you. Counsel for Mr. Lukic.

7 MR. IVETIC: We have nothing further, Your Honour.

8 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much.

9 This concludes today's Status Conference. I thank the parties

10 for their attendance and adjourn these proceedings.

11 --- Whereupon the Status Conference adjourned

12 at 3.48 p.m.