Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

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1 Monday, 12 December 2005

2 [Status Conference]

3 [Open session]

4 [The appellant entered court]

5 --- Upon commencing at 2.31 p.m.

6 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Good afternoon, everybody. May I ask the

7 registrar to please call the case.

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

9 IT-01-42-A, the Prosecutor versus Pavle Strugar.

10 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: And may we have the appearances, please, for the

11 Prosecution.

12 MS. BRADY: Good afternoon, Your Honour, Helen Brady appearing on

13 behalf of the Prosecution together with Mr. Xavier Tracol, and our case

14 manager, Ms. Carmela Annik-Javier.

15 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: The Defence, please.

16 MR. PETROVIC: [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Your Honour. I am

17 attorney-at-law Vladimir Petrovic on behalf of General Strugar. Thank

18 you.

19 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you. May I now, as usual, ask Mr. Strugar

20 himself. Can you follow the proceedings a language you understand, and do

21 you have any complaints about the situation in the detention unit or other

22 health problems not related to the prothesis surgery we will discuss later

23 in the Status Conference.

24 THE APPELLANT: [Interpretation] I have no objections about the

25 Detention Unit. As for my health condition, my hip problem, it's getting

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1 worse and worse, and --

2 MR. PETROVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, sorry for

3 interrupting the accused. If I may make a very brief remark. Since the

4 accused, Mr. Strugar, wishes to present some details about his health

5 problem, I would like to apply for these things to be said in private

6 session if possible. I move that we go briefly into private session so

7 Mr. Strugar can be given an opportunity to share all these details with

8 you. Thank you.

9 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: I think this goes without saying. Deliberately

10 I asked only on other health conditions not related to this hip

11 replacement.

12 [Private session]

13 (redacted)

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22 [Open session]

23 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: And only later on when we come back to the hip

24 replacement we'll go until private session.

25 But sorry, Mr. Strugar, for having interrupted you. You started

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1 to tell us something about kidney problems. Please continue.

2 THE APPELLANT: [Interpretation] What I would like to share with

3 you now is that I have asked my counsel to move that this information not

4 be released to the public. What I would like to do is tell you about my

5 difficulties, my various difficulties.

6 You asked me if there was anything else in addition to my hip

7 problem. Indeed there is. I would like to share this with you, but I

8 would like this to be done in closed session, please.

9 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Objections by the Prosecution?

10 MS. BRADY: No, we have no objection to this being in closed.

11 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Okay. Let's please go to private session.

12 [Private session]

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13 [Open session]

14 THE REGISTRAR: We're back in open session, Your Honour.

15 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Thank you. So nothing has changed. In

16 particular, nothing has changed since the amended provisional Practice

17 Direction on E-court system, and therefore I want to kindly ask with a

18 view to both Practice Directions, whenever they come across 68 material to

19 alert individuals, the Defence, on any such exhibits or witnesses or

20 everything that falls in the scope of Rule 68(i), no doubt superseding

21 paragraph (ii) of Rule 68.

22 Then it's for me to ask you are there any other issues to be

23 raised by the parties. The Defence?

24 MR. PETROVIC: [Interpretation] No, Your Honour. No thank you.

25 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: The Prosecution.

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1 MS. BRADY: No, Your Honour. Just to mention that since the last

2 Status Conference we have written to the Defence advising of certain

3 collections being placed on the EDS and certain updates to the EDS

4 following our last meeting at the Status Conference, and I understand that

5 the Defence is satisfied with this -- proceeding this way. We've also

6 made one disclosure under Rule 68(i) as a matter falling within our actual

7 knowledge.

8 Those are the only disclosure issues that have changed since the

9 last time that we were here in the Status Conference.

10 MR. PETROVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, precisely as my

11 learned friend says. We did receive some documents and some notes about

12 the interview with a potential witness in August 2002, and I must say that

13 opposed to the previous Prosecution team that omitted throughout the trial

14 in 2003 and 2004 to disclose this very interesting document, this

15 Prosecution team has done so. With a three-year delay, but it's better to

16 have it at some point rather than never. So I do appreciate what this

17 Prosecution team has done way of this careful assessment and finding

18 documents that can be potentially interesting and important by way of

19 evidence in these proceedings. Thank you.

20 JUDGE SCHOMBURG: Having heard your contribution, I want to alert

21 you that Defence, if it so wants, has the duty to move for a 115 admission

22 of new documents promptly, as soon as possible. So therefore, please

23 recall this particular duty on your side.

24 But I think time is of the essence right now. The first thing to

25 do is that Mr. Strugar gets his necessary treatment for today, and we

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1 expect a filing, maybe an urgent filing out of time. It's now a quarter

2 past three. I hope that you can do it by today, but please be extremely

3 precise for which purposes, because we heard some different scopes, some

4 related only to the hip replacement, other contribution also to other

5 health treatments. So please be as clear as possible, and also repeat the

6 time frame you indicated. I don't think it's necessary to repeat all the

7 other reasons. In there you can refer to your previous motions.

8 And the same goes for the Prosecution. I don't think anything has

9 to be repeated, and maybe we can do our very best to decide on this issue

10 already this week. However, I can't promise anything because some Judges

11 are not in The Hague right now because they have professional commitments

12 in New York.

13 If there is no other point to be discussed right now, the

14 appellate hearing stands adjourned. Thank you.

15 --- Whereupon the Status Conference adjourned

16 at 3.15 p.m.

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