Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 467

1 Tuesday, 24 January 2006

2 [Status Conference]

3 [Open session]

4 --- Upon commencing at 8.32 a.m.

5 [The accused entered court]

6 JUDGE AGIUS: Good morning to you, Madam Registrar. Could you

7 call the case, please.

8 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honour. This is case number

9 IT-03-67-PT, the Prosecutor versus Vojislav Seselj.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you, madam.

11 Mr. Seselj, can you follow the proceedings in your own language?

12 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: Appearances for the Prosecution.

14 MR. SAXON: Daniel Saxon for the Prosecution, Your Honour, with my

15 colleague, Mr. Ulrich Mussemeyer, assisted by our case manager, Ms. Ana

16 Katalinic.

17 JUDGE AGIUS: And stand-by counsel?

18 MR. VAN DER SPOEL: Good morning, Your Honour, Tjarda van der

19 Spoel, stand-by counsel.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you and good morning to you as well.

21 The reason for this Status Conference is the requirement of

22 Rule 65 bis to hold a Status Conference more or less every 120 days to

23 organise exchanges between the parties with a view to ensuring expeditious

24 preparation for trial and to review the status of the case and to allow

25 the accused the opportunity to raise issues in relation to the status of

Page 468

1 his case and in relation to his mental and physical condition and also

2 matters relating to his state of detention.

3 The last Status Conference was held on the 26th of September, 2005

4 and therefore we are holding this Status Conference within the 120-day

5 limit.

6 The reason why we are holding it so early in the morning is

7 because I had a request from the accused himself, which I found justified

8 by all means, and I had the cooperation of the parties in another case to

9 delay the commencement of the hearing of the sitting in the other case

10 later until this is finished.

11 So I will just report first on some of the events that have

12 occurred between the last Status Conference and this one. And I will

13 start first by informing you that at the latest, Tuesday or Wednesday of

14 next week, we will hand down the decision on electronic disclosure of

15 documents of the accused which is long overdue, but we had plenty to

16 discuss and finally we have come to a decision. It's receiving the final

17 polish and it should be out, I'll sign it on Tuesday after last meeting

18 with the other two judges or latest on Wednesday.

19 There is, then, the matter of a request by the accused for

20 material cited in the Prosecution's pre-trial brief. This goes back to

21 December 2004. It was submission number 67 from the accused, and the

22 Prosecution, when filing its pre-trial brief on the 14th of December

23 stated that it would eventually provide the witness and exhibit list.

24 Subsequently, the -- we had the accused submission number 67, as I said,

25 and the Prosecution responded to it on the 18th of January. This is an

Page 469

1 ongoing matter involving not only the pre-trial brief and the witness list

2 and the exhibit list but also other matters related that I will touch upon

3 as we go along.

4 One thing that I will be mentioning later on is that in view of

5 developments the pre-trial brief that you had filed earlier on in the

6 proceedings will have to be refiled with an update reflecting the

7 amendments to the indictment.

8 And touching on the indictment, I must say that on the 22nd of

9 October of 2004, the Prosecution requested leave to amend the indictment,

10 which had already been confirmed, originally been confirmed on the 14th of

11 February of 2003. My Trial Chamber on the 27th of May, 2005 granted the

12 Prosecution's request in principle, designating the Prosecution's proposed

13 amended indictment as the operative indictment while it ordered minor

14 clarifications. Subsequently on the 3rd of June of last year, the

15 Prosecution filed a corrigendum to the amended indictment clarifying the

16 part referred to by the Trial Chamber, and the Trial Chamber on the 8th of

17 July granted the corrigendum in part and ordered the Prosecution to file a

18 modified amended indictment accordingly.

19 The Prosecution filed the modified amended indictment on the 12th

20 of June 2000 -- July 2005, and on the 8th of September of last year, the

21 accused filed his submission 101, to which I will be referring again later

22 on, and preliminary motion number 102 pursuant to Rule 72 of the -- our

23 Rules of Procedure and Evidence challenging the modified or amended

24 indictment.

25 Inter alia, he submitted once more a challenge to the legality of

Page 470

1 the ICTY and alleged defects in the form of the modified amended

2 indictment.

3 The Prosecution filed its response to submission number 101 and

4 also to preliminary motion 102 and -- on the 16th of September 2005, and

5 basically it was pointed out to the Trial Chamber, pre-trial Chamber that

6 the length of the accused's motion was far beyond the limitation set in

7 the practice direction and Prosecution consequently requested the Trial

8 Chamber to refuse to receive the motion and directed accused to prepare a

9 new motion in the proper format before the 7th of October, 2005.

10 On the 23rd of September of last year, I issued a decision in

11 which I refused to accept the accused's preliminary motion and gave him

12 the chance to file his objections, if any, by the 7th of October in the

13 format prescribed by the practice directive.

14 On the 10th of October, 2005, the accused filed his submission

15 number 111 in which he requested certification to appeal my decision of

16 the 23rd of September, 2005 and then extension of the deadline for raising

17 objections to the modified amended indictment until such time as he has

18 received a translation into the Serbian language of judgements from --

19 certain judgements from the ICTR, the Rwanda Tribunal. The Trial Chamber

20 denied the accused's requests, and on 17th of November, 2005, he filed his

21 submission number 119, in which he requested certification to appeal the

22 Trial Chamber's decision on submissions 110 and 111 on the grounds that

23 the denial of certification to appeal constituted a denial of his right to

24 submit objections to the modified amended indictment. A decision is

25 pending on this motion. On Tuesday, this coming Tuesday, the other two

Page 471

1 Judges and myself are going to meet specifically to finalise our decision

2 on this matter.

3 So in all probability, Wednesday, I will sign the decision on

4 disclosure, and towards the end of the week, I will sign the decision on

5 your request for certification. But Mr. Seselj is not the only one who is

6 seeking certification. There is also the Prosecution that is seeking

7 certification in relation to our decision on the sixth motion for

8 protective measures for witnesses which we gave, I think, on the 13th of

9 December, 2005 before we went into recess.

10 This will be considered in due course, as I said, but we are

11 giving priority to the request for certification on the part of the

12 accused, so I cannot exactly state when we will be able to dispose of

13 yours but it should come up immediately after.

14 Then there are two other motions that have been forthcoming from

15 the accused. One is in relation to a request that he has made for the

16 payment by the Registry of 2.339.400 US dollars for expenses incurred by

17 his expert team associated with the preparation of his defence in 2003 and

18 2005, between 2003 and 2005, and the ultimate motion for the revocation of

19 our long-standing decision to appoint a stand-by counsel in his case.

20 These two motions are also on the agenda I have for the Tuesday

21 meeting with the other two Judges. Basically they have already been

22 considered to some extent by the three of us separately and we have

23 exchanged views on our position, and on Tuesday we should be able to

24 finalise. Whether we should be able to hand down a decision by the end of

25 next week depends on whether Registrar would have filed his comments on

Page 472

1 the first of these two motions, because we are -- we will be requiring

2 some kind of feedback from the Registrar to see what the position of the

3 Registrar is in relation to this matter.

4 So these are basically the events that have taken place as regards

5 to motion.

6 If you would like to make any comments on any of these motions

7 now, Mr. Seselj, please go ahead.

8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] First of all, I'd like to say

9 something with respect to the motion that has to do with the decision of

10 the pre-trial Chamber that in this case, in these proceedings, the

11 function of stand-by counsel be introduced as it's called. Now, although

12 that decision and ruling was made almost three years ago, it still does

13 not have any legal foundation in the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, let

14 alone the Statute of the international Tribunal. That decision is outside

15 the legal system of this international Tribunal and from that, I deduce

16 that the decision was so distorted in the legal sense that the Judges of

17 this Tribunal did not even make the effort to ground it in law later on

18 subsequently and it exists only in this particular case.

19 In the international military court in Nuremberg, the accused had

20 the right completely freely to decide whether they were going to defend

21 themselves or whether they were to appoint a counsel, and they could have

22 appointed counsel without any criteria set. It would suffice that he was

23 a member of the bar on the list of the bar of any state.

24 Now what is being done here, the arbitrariness of the Secretariat

25 in this case on the basis of a decision and ruling of the pre-trial

Page 473

1 Chamber dating to 2003, is truly a legal absurdity which must be done away

2 with as soon as possible, at least in the proceedings against me. Perhaps

3 somebody else will find it fairly suitable.

4 Now, with respect to the payment of expenses and costs, the

5 Secretariat is consistently avoiding making a decisive decision.

6 According to the Statute of the international Tribunal, I have the right

7 to receive sums of money. That is what the Statute says. I have received

8 no resources to date, and my expenses run up to 2.300-something thousand

9 dollars. They are objective expenses incurred by concrete work, and I

10 have proof of the concrete work done. The large number of motions,

11 submissions by me, reports and so on and so forth. So none of these

12 points and items have been fabricated. They are well grounded on concrete

13 work expended.

14 Now, the Registry asked me to state what property I owned. I

15 provided them with exact information. As to members of my family, closer

16 family or distant family don't wish to cooperate with the Registry, and

17 it's up to them. My family members are not going to put in their property

18 to finance my defence. The registry would be right to insist upon that if

19 it had a single shred of evidence and proof that I, from the date in which

20 one of these criminal acts allegedly was committed, had -- handed over

21 part of my property to my family members and then you could deduce that I

22 intentionally wanted to leave myself indigent, without the resources to

23 pay for my own defence; however, I never did that.

24 I always regularly stated the property that I had, and in addition

25 to what I have, I demand that the international Tribunal finance my

Page 474

1 defence. Furthermore, the international Tribunal must bear in mind how

2 the cases were conducted in all the other proceedings, what the expenses

3 for defence were and to see how complicated this case is because there are

4 certain trials which are linked to just one locality and a very limited

5 space of time and then the Defence case costs $4 or 5 million nonetheless,

6 whereas in my case the crimes, alleged crimes have been spread out

7 throughout the whole of the territory of the former Yugoslavia. It is very

8 difficult and complicated to prepare my defence, especially as the

9 Prosecution wishes to ascribe to me the criminal acts of Vuk Draskovic and

10 then sends me documents by mistake and then says -- sends the prison

11 guards to seize the binders that it has provided me with because they

12 disclosed for more than they wished to disclose, and such scandalous acts

13 have been happening within the framework of this case.

14 So you can't keep a secret how much defence expenses ran up to in

15 other cases, whereas the Prosecution says that this is a secret. What

16 secret? It's how the United Nations monies are being spent. It's not a

17 question of protected witnesses. The Prosecution is endeavouring to

18 side-step that obligation it has. And another important question that I

19 wish to raise is this: I am still not able to cooperate normally with my

20 legal advisers and members of the expert team to prepare my defence. I

21 have consistently been putting forward the names of people who are well

22 qualified to be my legal advisers and who proved themselves to be my legal

23 advisers in preparing a large number of court motions, reports and so on

24 and so forth and submissions, whereas the Registry is asking that my legal

25 advisers fulfil the conditions prescribed for lawyers, attorneys. My

Page 475

1 legal advisers will never be attorneys, will never be Defence counsel in

2 this case, and as Defence counsels I don't need them. I need them the way

3 they stand, how they are, graduated legal men to carry out the work that I

4 wish them to carry out for me, and as long as I'm satisfied with their

5 work, I don't wish to change them, nor do I wish to take somebody else

6 that the Registry of the international Tribunal would impose upon me in

7 its biased nature, and this has been proved many other times in other

8 cases and in my own case.

9 Furthermore, the Registry is asking me that my legal advisers know

10 English or French. Now, to be quite frank, I don't have any confidence in

11 a Serb who knows English and French very well, those languages, because

12 experience has told me that I can't have trust and confidence in people

13 like that. They don't have any need of knowing the French and English

14 languages. The important thing is that they know the Serbian language

15 well, that they can understand what I'm saying and carry out the requests

16 I have made for my proper defence.

17 Another condition was set that my legal advisers were not in a

18 relevant criminal proceedings. I come from a country that has been under

19 communist regime. There is no honest and honourable man who is a

20 prominent intellectual, lawyer or any other profession who lived under the

21 communist regime without having been held criminally responsible at least

22 once in his life for some crime or misdemeanours. Anybody who hasn't been

23 had before the courts was not a moral and decent person during the

24 communist regime. They didn't have the guts to stand up to that regime,

25 so if they have not been proclaimed guilty in some criminal proceedings, I

Page 476

1 cannot accept them. I only have people who are dissidents and who

2 suffered under the communist regime and by the same token were convicted

3 of some crimes by that regime.

4 Next it says that my legal advisers must be people who did not

5 upset the public's belief and trust in the international Tribunal, go

6 against its image. Now my legal advisers can only be persons who together

7 with me do, in fact, question and challenge the standing of this

8 international Tribunal as an illegal Tribunal because by the end of these

9 proceedings, at the end much this court trial, one of my defence pivotal

10 points will be that I'm challenging its legality. I'm not going to give

11 that up, and nobody can force me to give up that position I'm going to

12 take. So my legal advisers never published confidential material either.

13 They signed agreement with me on disclosure, governing disclosure, binding

14 themselves not to disclose a single confidential piece of material or

15 document which I receive, which I have in my possession and receive from

16 the OTP or the Registry, that this will not come out in public, and that

17 is sufficient. They are fully conscious of the measures governing

18 protected witnesses and the protection of certain confidential documents,

19 and what more can be asked of them to do. However, the Registry would

20 like to force me to take on people that the Secretariat and Registry can

21 influence and therefore upset my defence. These pre-trial proceedings

22 have been going on for three years now, and during those three years,

23 there have been attempts on the part of the Registry to make my defence

24 impossible.

25 And finally I insist upon going to trial as soon as possible. If

Page 477

1 you don't give me legal advisers, right, you're not going to give them to

2 me, I'm going to go ahead alone. If you don't provide me with all the

3 documents in the Serbian language, right, I'm going to go ahead and I'm

4 trial ready without them. But I would like to remind you of the Nuremberg

5 military tribunal which categorically guaranteed the right of the accused

6 to receive all court material in his own language, every single piece of

7 material, and you're trying to side-step that obligation. Every document

8 must be written down on paper. You don't provide it on paper. You

9 provide if to me in this electronic -- that's up to you. It's up to you.

10 A reasonable time limit for the beginning of trial must be set.

11 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Seselj, you have exactly one more minute to

12 finish.

13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'll be finished right away,

14 Mr. Agius.

15 The point is that every reasonable deadline for the start of trial

16 is long over. Your Trial Chamber has evaded stating anything about this.

17 The Prosecution says this is not true. But even had I been on provisional

18 release, this time period would have been too long leading up to the start

19 of trial, let alone having to wait for it in detention.

20 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. Thank you, Mr. Seselj.

21 These matters or those of them that have relevance will be subject

22 matter of our various decisions.

23 Any particular submissions on your side?

24 MR. SAXON: No, Your Honour.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you. We'll deal with disclosure now.

Page 478

1 Disclosure under Rule 66(A)(i), following the modified amended

2 indictment, can the Prosecution confirm that any new supporting material

3 has now been disclosed?

4 MR. SAXON: We can confirm that, Your Honour, that's correct.

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Can you confirm this, Mr. Seselj, only in relation

6 to disclosure under 66(A)(i), supporting materials, in other words.

7 Answer yes or no, please.

8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes. But I have to remind you that

9 part of this material has been seized from me subsequently.

10 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. Yes. I'm aware of that.

11 Rule 66(A)(ii) material disclosure. Basically I will restrict

12 this only to the sixth motion for protective measures for witnesses which

13 was filed by the Prosecution on the 5th of October and a decision was

14 reached on the 13th of December. I wish to confirm that this decision is

15 the subject of a request by the Prosecution for certification to appeal.

16 Otherwise I don't think that there is anything else to do about this

17 except to have a confirmation from the Prosecution that otherwise, saving

18 the -- these decisions, you have completed disclosure under

19 Rule 66(A)(ii). Are you in a position to confirm that?

20 MR. SAXON: No, I am not, Your Honour.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Yes. And what is the situation, then?

22 MR. SAXON: We are awaiting the Trial Chamber's decision.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: Of course. I realise that. I said I'm only going

24 to put in this safe compartment the decision on the sixth motion

25 obviously. But apart from that, you have disclosed what you needed to

Page 479

1 disclose.

2 MR. SAXON: Pending that motion, yes, Your Honour.

3 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, all right.

4 Rule 68 material, is there anything else? I know that this is

5 usually an ongoing process, but is there anything under Rule 68 material

6 that you have dug up which you haven't disclosed as yet?

7 MR. SAXON: Yes, Your Honour, pending the Trial Chamber's decision

8 on the form of disclosure, yes.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. So that I think the position you

10 understand what has been stated by the Prosecution.

11 Do you wish to add anything, Mr. Seselj? Very shortly, very

12 briefly. Yes, go ahead.

13 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Yes. There is a big problem

14 concerning the disclosure under Rule 68 of the Rules of Procedure and

15 Evidence, as regards exculpatory material. The Prosecution is trying to

16 evade this obligation by providing me with inadequate material. I have

17 already drawn the Trial Chamber's attention to this. The rule states that

18 all exculpatory evidence must have something to do with the case against

19 me, if not with the case then at least with me personally.

20 However, the Prosecution is delivering to me, for example, minutes

21 of exhumations of bodies near Prijedor. Prijedor is not even mentioned in

22 the indictment, not a single place in Bosanska Krajina is mentioned -- in

23 Bosnian Krajina is mentioned in my indictment, so what should I do with

24 this material? What use is it to me? The Court should not allow the

25 Prosecution to evade its obligation to disclose Rule 68 material in this

Page 480

1 way. The Prosecution needs to invest as much energy and time in finding

2 exculpatory material as it does in the finding of incriminating material,

3 and this has been stated before this Tribunal in other cases.

4 The Trial Chamber should prevent the Prosecution from evading or

5 ignoring its Rule 68 obligation and to act according to the Rules of

6 Procedure and Evidence.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you, Mr. Seselj. If there are specific

8 instances where you believe that the Prosecution had in its possession

9 Rule 68 material which it did not disclose to you, then please bring that

10 to the attention of the Trial Chamber and we'll deal with it after having

11 given the Prosecution the chance to deal with the matter too.

12 Rule 65 ter material. Now, here the position is obvious. You had

13 filed a pre-trial brief last December. Due to the newly -- new amended

14 modified indictment, I think we need an updated pre-trial brief. How much

15 time do you require?

16 MR. SAXON: Your Honour --

17 JUDGE AGIUS: Or I suppose that you had thought about this and

18 that you had started working on it; I would presume so at least.

19 MR. SAXON: Yes, Your Honour. And it is the Prosecution's

20 intention to file its updated pre-trial brief by the end of next week,

21 which would be close of business, 3rd of February, 2006.

22 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. Okay. And that will be translated into

23 your language and then you will have an opportunity to come back to us

24 with your response.

25 Are there any other issues that you would like to raise,

Page 481

1 Mr. Seselj, and then I will ask you as well, before I come to the question

2 of the conditions of your state of detention and your health.

3 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] No. I've said what I had to say

4 today. I only insist that the start of trial be scheduled as soon as

5 possible and that the Trial Chamber decide whether a reasonable time limit

6 has expired or not for the start of trial.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. I thank you, Mr. Seselj. I can assure

8 you that the Tribunal is very anxious to start your case because, as you

9 said, you have been in detention for quite sometime now and that the fact

10 that there has not been a joinder with the other cases that were planned

11 earlier on should provide you an indication that your case will not take

12 long before starting. Otherwise it would have taken longer.

13 So let's come to the conditions of the accused. First of all, I

14 wish to inform you that come March, end of February, March, or at some

15 other point in time during spring in particular, I intend to commission

16 another analysis of the air in your room for purposes of establishing the

17 existence of allergens now that we know what you are allergic to. The

18 indications in the expert's report that we have, that we received sometime

19 back, is that in spring particularly early spring, there might be a change

20 which should be of interest not only to you but also to us.

21 The other thing I wish to mention you -- to mention and ask you

22 about, and if you want me can go into private session about this, that in

23 reading the report I got impression that while you are receiving

24 medication for asthma, you are not receiving medication for your

25 allergies. I don't know if I have read the report well or not, but you

Page 482

1 are in a better position to know what kind of medication you are

2 receiving.

3 This is something that I noticed in the report and that I wanted

4 to ask you about. If you need my intervention, and that of the other two

5 Judges in this regard, let's start with this first and then we continue

6 with the rest.

7 Yes, Mr. Seselj.

8 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] First of all, I think there is no

9 need to go into private session. Mr. Agius, I have already told you that

10 my condition of health should not be a secret to anyone and my health is

11 not so bad that I should be constantly complaining about it. I receive

12 medication for my allergy to pollen in the appropriate season. However, I

13 have never received any medication for allergy to yeasts and moulds

14 because it has only recently been discovered that I am allergic to these,

15 probably because of the conditions in the detention unit. However, there

16 is no medication that is capable of removing all the symptoms of asthma.

17 That's the problem.

18 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. But what I want to know from you is

19 that -- whether, following the report by the expert, you have been

20 receiving the right treatment and the attention you require, or whether

21 you have any specific complaints that you would like to make to me, the

22 reason being that I will attend to those complaints straight away.

23 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'm still receiving the same

24 medication I received before. Nothing has changed.

25 As for the conditions, they have worsened for all accused in the

Page 483

1 meantime. They have all been to the -- moved to the building in which I

2 am, and now, of course, there is no use asking to be moved back to a

3 building that no longer exists, but if I were to get a cell with more

4 light, more sunshine, my health condition might improve. But I won't

5 insist on that. There are far more serious problems here, so in the past

6 few months as you may have noticed I am no longer stressing this point.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: Yes, but are there any points related to your health

8 or to the state of detention that you would like to raise before we

9 adjourn?

10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The most serious problem I'm facing

11 is the problem of photocopying. I have about a thousand handwritten pages

12 of text, densely written text. You know how densely I write, Mr. Agius.

13 I must photocopy this in order to give copies to the members of my expert

14 team so that they can make use of this material in their further projects.

15 I'm not able to do this because the detention unit authorities are not

16 permitting me to photocopy. That is the minimum requirement I have. They

17 have provided me with an additional cell but I haven't used it in a year.

18 I don't need an additional cell. I need photocopying facilities. They

19 keep giving me something I don't need while consistently evading providing

20 me with things I do need.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: With regard to photocopying, you know that we -- we

22 are fully aware of your request. We know that you requested the

23 commanding officer of the unit and that subsequently you are aware that

24 the Registry filed a confidential and ex parte submission stating that it

25 was not the responsibility of UNDU to provide clerical support to the

Page 484

1 accused. We made sure that you were aware of the Registrar's position and

2 objections, reflecting, of course, the position of the commanding officer

3 after you rightly so filed your submission number 114 requesting that the

4 Registrar's position be made --

5 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] There is a problem in the

6 interpretation.

7 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. So -- can you receive interpretation

8 now?

9 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Some words are being used which I

10 don't understand "tajnistvo," "tajnik," and so on. These expressions do

11 not exist in the Serbian language.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. You have to live with that, Mr. Seselj. I

13 understand that the difference between those words and the corresponding

14 word in the Serbian language sometimes is of just one letter.

15 Anyway, there was submission number 114 on your part requesting to

16 have access to the Registrar's submission because the Registrar's

17 submission had been filed confidential and ex parte. We granted you this,

18 but we also stated that it is not a duty or the responsibility of the UN

19 Detention Unit to make photocopies for you, since you had chosen a -- to

20 defend yourself. If you want to make copies, you obviously need to make

21 your own arrangements. That's the position taken by us. I do not have on

22 record, at least I don't recall having it on record, that you asked for

23 certification to appeal from this judgement, unless I am wrong.

24 Is there anything else you would like to raise, Mr. Seselj?

25 Then I will ask you whether you would like to raise anything and

Page 485

1 we close.

2 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I have a feeling, Mr. Agius, that we

3 are on different wavelengths. I never said that the detention unit was

4 duty-bound to photocopy materials for me. But it is the Registry that is

5 duty-bound to do so, in the same way that they provide administrative

6 support to the Court and the Prosecution, they have to provide it to me.

7 According to the Statute, I have the right to funds and means to prepare

8 my defence, and one of the minimum requirements is the ability to

9 photocopy.

10 The response given to me is that the warden of the detention unit

11 is not bound to do it. Well, he isn't, but the Court is. The Court has

12 to provide me with means to prepare my defence.

13 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. I thank you. If you have an ad hoc

14 motion to file in that regard, provided it is substantially different in

15 argument from the previous one, you're free to do so and we will decide

16 it.

17 Yes, Mr. Saxon, are there any submissions you would like to make

18 before we wind up?

19 MR. SAXON: Your Honour, I have two very brief points to address

20 the Court. First of all, simply that today the Prosecution intends to

21 file a motion to admit a number of written statements pursuant to Rule

22 92 bis, so that will be filed by close of business today, Your Honour.

23 Secondly, it is to the best of my understanding and belief, there

24 is another matter still pending before the Chamber. It is the

25 Prosecution's motion for non-disclosure of names and other identifying

Page 486

1 information which was filed on the 21st of July, 2004, and just very

2 briefly, there is a bit of a history to this. It relates to a motion that

3 the accused made in the end of March 2004 for access to all witness

4 statements in the possession of the Prosecution that mentioned his name,

5 and the Prosecution agreed to accept this motion as a request under

6 Rule 66(B) with the caveat that certain witness statements that mention

7 the accused's name also required certain redactions of identity, and so we

8 filed a motion solely seeking permission from the Chamber.

9 JUDGE AGIUS: I recall it, yes.

10 MR. SAXON: And I believe that motion also is pending and, of

11 course, that matter under Rule 66(B) could also move forward pursuant to

12 the Trial Chamber's expected decision on form of disclosure once it's

13 made.

14 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. I reserve my position and that of the

15 Trial Chamber on this. We'll check. I do, of course, have it -- I

16 remember it vividly in my memory, but I am under the impression that we

17 had come to a conclusion on that. I stand to be corrected and will deal

18 with it after verifying.

19 Any other submissions?

20 MR. SAXON: No, Your Honour.

21 JUDGE AGIUS: Okay. Thank you.

22 So at this point, I declare the Status Conference closed. The

23 next one will be held within the statutory or regulamentary period of 120

24 days and you will both be notified accordingly.

25 Thank you.

Page 487

1 --- Whereupon the Status Conference adjourned at

2 9.16 a.m.

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