Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 12279

1 Thursday, 9 September 2004

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 --- Upon commencing at 2.32 p.m.

5 JUDGE LIU: Will you please call the case, Mr. Court Deputy.

6 THE REGISTRAR: Good afternoon, Your Honours. This is Case

7 Number IT-02-60-T, the Prosecutor versus Vidoje Blagojevic and Dragan

8 Jokic.

9 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much.

10 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to these

11 proceedings and to this courtroom.

12 This afternoon we'll have a sitting in accordance with our

13 decision rendered on the 30th of July, 2004, as well as the decision we

14 delivered on September 2nd, 2004.

15 The purpose of this hearing is to give a chance to Mr. Blagojevic

16 to make a statement in accordance with the Rule 84 bis.

17 Before we start, let me remind the parties about this rule.

18 "Rule 84 bis, Statement of the Accused.

19 (A). After the opening statement of the parties or, if the

20 Defence elects to defer its opening statement pursuant to Rule 84, after

21 the opening statement of the Prosecutor, if any, the accused may, if he

22 or she so wishes, and the Trial Chamber so decides, make a statement

23 under the control of the Trial Chamber. The accused shall not be

24 compelled to make a solemn declaration and shall not be examined about

25 the content of the statement.

Page 12280

1 (B). The Trial Chamber shall decide on the probative value, if

2 any, of the statement.

3 Here I have some questions to ask Mr. Blagojevic.

4 Mr. Blagojevic, are you going to make a statement?

5 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please, for the accused.

6 JUDGE LIU: Your microphone, please.

7 THE ACCUSED BLAGOJEVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, with your

8 permission, there are just three or four sentences I would like to say

9 quite clearly.

10 First of all, for the sake of the transcript, I would like to

11 say that I am not represented by counsel in this case. That is my

12 position. I haven't changed that position.

13 Secondly, two and a half or three months ago I addressed the

14 Trial Chamber and requested that they grant me leave to testify. This

15 matter was discussed in the courtroom. I refused to consider other

16 options at the time. I was only in favour of testifying. As I won't be

17 allowed to testify, there is nothing else that I have to say. I didn't

18 opt for any other options in the course of the debate held in this

19 courtroom. I wanted to testify in the best possible conditions, but given

20 the situation that prevails, I would not like to take such a significant

21 risk in these circumstances. As to who is representing me and how I am

22 being represented by counsel, these are matters that I would not like to

23 go in at the moment. Thank you, Your Honours.

24 JUDGE LIU: Well, is it my understanding that you give up this

25 opportunity to make a statement? Which means that you are not going to

Page 12281

1 deliver any statement?

2 THE ACCUSED BLAGOJEVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, that's not

3 how I'd like to express myself. In relation to such important matters.

4 I wanted to testify. So this isn't the form in which I would like to

5 make a statement. To testify as to the right of an accused. As to these

6 other options that you explained at the time and I understood you very

7 well, these don't amount to testimony. These aren't options that I can

8 accept. Since I'm not allowed to testify in that case, my position is

9 very unclear. And the reasons for this has to do with certain

10 individuals who think that this is how my defence can be conducted. But

11 as you see, there is nothing I can do about this. I am quite helpless in

12 the matter.

13 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.

14 [Trial Chamber confers]

15 JUDGE LIU: Well, after consultations with my colleagues, we

16 believe that you voluntarily refused this opportunity to make a

17 statement. It is so decided. You may sit down, please.

18 THE ACCUSED BLAGOJEVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, I agree

19 but please could you consider and see whether this is how it has to be.

20 I wouldn't like to object to what you have decided. I wouldn't like to

21 enter into a debate now. Thank you.

22 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much. So, let's come to the next

23 issue. There's some housekeeping matters that we have to deal with,

24 taking this opportunity. That is, we still have some matters concerning

25 of the evidence, especially witness list. I would like to seek the

Page 12282

1 clarifications from the parties.

2 First of all, I would like to ask some questions to Mr.

3 Blagojevic's Defence, that is whether the Defence would like to clean up

4 the witness list concerning of all not admitted evidence, the Rule 92 bis

5 witnesses, that is 7, 11, 14, 20, 25, 30, 47, 56, and 63. I see there

6 are some changes on this list. Am I right, Mr. Karnavas?

7 MR. KARNAVAS: Well, the only other number I have was number 13,

8 but I believe that on that particular -- that witness was dropped by the

9 Defence. In any event, we believe we had tendered these witnesses

10 initially. The Court had made some rulings. We're satisfied with the

11 Court's rulings. So as a result of that, we withdraw these witnesses

12 from -- you know, from the list. I don't know if I'm making -- if I'm

13 being clear enough.

14 JUDGE LIU: Thank you. And as for the 92 bis witness, I think I

15 made a mistake. It's not 20 but 23.

16 MR. KARNAVAS: 23.

17 JUDGE LIU: 23. Am I right?

18 MR. KARNAVAS: Yes, I have 7, 11, 14, 23, 25, 30, 47, 56, and 63.

19 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much. Which corresponds to my list.

20 Thank you. And also, I'll confirm that you withdraw the witness number

21 13, as you said before.

22 MR. KARNAVAS: That's correct, Your Honour.

23 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much.

24 The next question I would like to ask to Mr. Jokic's Defence. I

25 wonder if you could confirm that some of the 92 bis witnesses are

Page 12283

1 withdrawn, that is W21, W22, and W23.

2 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honours.

3 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much.

4 There are some issues that -- you may sit down, please, Mr.

5 Stojanovic.

6 There are some issues about the exhibit list which we might clean

7 up the exhibit list with the Court Deputy. Those exhibits which have

8 been double tendered or admitted should be admitted only under one number

9 unless the two versions of a document are different. So this Trial

10 Chamber would like to ask the parties after this sitting to meet with the

11 Court Deputy to clean up those exhibit lists by September 15th, at

12 latest.

13 And are there any documents that are still in need of translation

14 at this stage?

15 Yes, Mr. McCloskey.

16 MR. McCLOSKEY: Good afternoon, Your Honours, Mr. President.

17 Ms. Stewart tells me as far as we know we have at least draft

18 translations for everything, which is fine from my perspective. I don't

19 think we need to insist holding up until the finals -- but finals are

20 coming in. We have drafts. If that's fine with us -- and I'm not sure

21 -- I don't recall which documents they are right now. Some -- I don't

22 think there's anything that we're really -- that's very contested. But

23 if there are, I'm sure we can discuss it.

24 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.

25 On the part of the Defence? Mr. Karnavas.

Page 12284

1 MR. KARNAVAS: Thank you, Mr. President. I am being told that we

2 have official translations, at least with respect to D123/1, B, I guess,

3 and D140/1B. And there is another document, D143, and I believe that has

4 been officially translated as well. I'm also told about -- I don't know

5 if the Court wants to hear this, but about a new exhibit that was based

6 on the Trial Chamber's request, and that's D232. The request was made on

7 the transcript -- in court, and I believe it's -- we can find it on the

8 transcript page 11.226 at line 20 to 11.229 line 11, and again on 11.238

9 lines 13 to 17.

10 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much.

11 Mr. Stojanovic, what's the situation on your part.

12 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour. If you

13 remember, it is still our duty to provide the Prosecution with an

14 official translation from the CLSS, the official translation of two rules

15 that we used in the course of examining a military expert. That has to

16 do with the rules of duty in the military forces and instructions on

17 competence. And these translations have been provided to us in draft

18 form and we have provided them to the Prosecution. There are some tables

19 that still need to be translated, as well as lists which we used when

20 examining the Milajlo Cvijetic. We have received some translations now.

21 We received them after the recess. So at present there is no evidence

22 that hasn't been translated.

23 We also respect our duty to do everything that is necessary with

24 regard to material evidence and we received from the registry a request

25 to finalise nine documents. We'll present this to the registry from my

Page 12285

1 exhibit list. We've also discussed the matter. So I don't think that

2 this Defence team now has any obligations it has failed to comply with.

3 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much.

4 Since this case is approaching to its end, I hope the parties

5 will approach the Court Deputy to discuss the translation issues, if

6 there is any. We hope we could have a complete evidence record. Thank

7 you.

8 And there are two decisions concerning of the admission of the

9 evidence this Trial Chamber would like to make. The first one we decided

10 to admit the document D209/1, that is the expert statement of

11 Schifanelli. The second decision is that we decided to admit the

12 document D73/3, that is the redacted Jokic expert report filed on the

13 29th of July. It is so decided.

14 At this stage are there any other matters that the parties would

15 like to bring to the attention of this Bench? Yes, Mr. McCloskey.

16 MR. McCLOSKEY: Just the simple manner -- well, it's not to

17 simple. The trial -- the closing briefs. I would just request the Court

18 if we be allowed to have up to 250 pages. The Defence each has 200. The

19 facts are, as you know, a little -- significantly different in Bratunac

20 and in Zvornik. We're trying to keep it concise, but if we had that

21 freedom to go up to 250, it would be very helpful for us. I'll try to

22 keep it as below that as much as I can. But we don't want to miss

23 anything and there's a lot of evidence in this case.

24 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.

25 Any comments? Mr. Karnavas.

Page 12286

1 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour, I don't feel the need to comment at

2 this point. 50 additional pages to read is a significant amount for the

3 Defence, so -- but I understand Mr. McCloskey's position. He's dealing

4 with two accused. So I'll leave it to the Court. Far be it from me to

5 try and stifle his creativity at this stage of the proceedings.

6 I do have a couple of points I would like to make, though --

7 JUDGE LIU: Yes, we'll give the opportunity at a later stage.

8 MR. KARNAVAS: Thank you.

9 JUDGE LIU: Mr. Stojanovic.

10 MR. STOJANOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour. We are working

11 on our submission which will certainly consist of over a hundred pages.

12 Given the weight of our case and the evidence and Mr. Blagojevic's case

13 -- we're also aware of the fact that the Prosecution has to deal with two

14 individuals, and therefore I think that it would be quite correct to

15 allow the Prosecution to have a brief consisting of 250 pages. This

16 Defence team would not object to granting them the additional 50 pages.

17 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much, both of you, for your

18 cooperation. The request from the Prosecution to have 250 pages final

19 brief is granted. But I have to remind the parties that the final brief

20 is the position of the counsels. And we have already heard the evidence

21 for over a year. So my advice is: Try your best to make it as concise

22 and clear as possible. Thank you.

23 Mr. Karnavas, yes.

24 MR. KARNAVAS: There are a couple of points. One, I wanted to

25 mention that on D -- I guess it would be Exhibit D18/1, I am told that

Page 12287

1 this document has been admitted into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit P483

2 already. And so I was told to mention this on the record. I believe the

3 registrar already knows that. So I just wanted to point that out.

4 And the other thing is we did a few days ago submit the

5 supporting material that go to the footnotes, to the supporting document,

6 of Mr. Schifanelli's report --

7 JUDGE LIU: You surprise me very much. It consisted that thick of

8 the documents.

9 MR. KARNAVAS: Your Honour, I promised to be thorough and we

10 tried to make sure that the Court had all of the information it needed so

11 it could -- you know, you could dig deep into the subject matter if you

12 so chose. That's it, Your Honour.

13 JUDGE LIU: Any comments, Mr. Peter McCloskey?

14 MR. McCLOSKEY: We have a similar stack which is a little bigger

15 of Mr. Butler's footnotes. I don't want to get into the battle of the

16 footnotes. But I would just like to take a flexible position that if in

17 reading Mr. Butler's report there's a reference to a document that you

18 think is important, that that document be allowed into evidence. The

19 report is on a CD and you can can -- it's hyperlinked to the footnotes.

20 So we really -- we didn't specifically deal with the footnotes when we

21 had Mr. Butler up here. We've since, as you know, found that some of the

22 documents are rather important. I hope we've got most of the them. We

23 don't need to give you a whole stack of other ones. If you do find this

24 is something you're interested in citing one way or the other, those

25 footnotes are there and I think it would be a good idea to put them into

Page 12288

1 evidence if you use it, because it's certainly before you. So that's all

2 I had on that.

3 I have one other small matter that we should take about in

4 private session which has to do with the near future. But I don't think

5 I have anything else aside from that.

6 JUDGE LIU: Yes.

7 Well, as it's understood that all of us, there's some rules for

8 the admission of evidence in these proceedings. We cannot allow any

9 documents to go through into the evidence through the backdoor. This

10 practice should not be encouraged because we already have boxes and boxes

11 of documents at our disposal. So we regard the submissions by the

12 Defence as the reference paper and it's admitted by one side. It has not

13 gone through the proceedings in this courtroom. So they don't have

14 automatically the status of evidence but just as the reference to what

15 has already been admitted into the evidence. Yes.

16 Shall we go into private session, please.

17 [Private session]

18 (redacted)

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1 (redacted)

2 [Open session]

3 JUDGE LIU: Well, it seems to me there are no other matters on

4 the agenda for this afternoon. And concerning of the rejoinder, rebuttal

5 and the rejoinder as well as the re-opening the cases, the Trial Chamber

6 is elaborating on the decision right now. We hope we could deliver it as

7 soon as possible. And after that the parties will know the position and

8 the decision of the Trial Chamber on that very issue.

9 Yes, Mr. Karnavas.

10 MR. KARNAVAS: I take it you don't want to hear arguments on that

11 issue.

12 JUDGE LIU: No, we have already received the filings from both

13 parties. I guess you don't have any extra, you know, comments on it

14 because we have already received the written forms.

15 MR. KARNAVAS: Well, I'm willing to answer any questions that the

16 Trial Chamber may have on the issues, though. So if there were points

17 that I wasn't as persuasive as I should have been at the time I filed the

18 motion and if there are any issues that need qualification, I'm

19 available.

20 JUDGE LIU: We appreciate your attitude very much.

21 MR. KARNAVAS: Thank you, Your Honour.

22 JUDGE LIU: Well, I think that's all for this sitting. And the

23 hearing is adjourned.

24 Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 3.06 p.m., to be

25 reconvened on Monday, the 13th of September, 2004, at

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