Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

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 1                           Tuesday, 16 March 2010

 2                           [Status Conference]

 3                           [Open session]

 4                           [The appellants entered court]

 5                           --- Upon commencing at 2.18 p.m.

 6             JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation] Good afternoon everyone.  The court

 7     is in session.

 8             Registrar, could you kindly call the case of the current hearing.

 9             THE REGISTRAR:  Thank you, Your Honours.

10             Good afternoon.  This is case number IT-98-32/1-A, The Prosecutor

11     versus Milan Lukic and Sredoje Lukic.

12             JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation] Thank you.

13             Mr. Milan Lukic, can you hear and follow the proceedings in a

14     language which you understand?

15             THE ACCUSED M. LUKIC: [Interpretation] Good afternoon.  Yes, I

16     can hear it in a language I understand.

17             JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation] Thank you.

18             Mr. Sredoje Lukic, can you hear and follow the proceedings in a

19     language which you understand?

20             THE ACCUSED S. LUKIC: [Microphone not activated]

21             JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation] Thank you.

22             May we have the appearances, please.  Starting by the

23     representatives of the Office of the Prosecutor, please.

24             MS. MONCHY: [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Mr. President.

25             My name is Virginie Monchy.  I represent the OTP today.  With me

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 1     is Mr. Paul Rogers who is the senior appeals counsel, as well as

 2     Mrs. Lourdes Galicia who is our Case Manager.

 3             JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation] Thank you.

 4             Turning now to the Defence, please.

 5             MR. VISNJIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, Tomislav Visnjic for

 6     the Defence of Milan Lukic, together with Mr. Dragan Ivetic,

 7     Vladimir Bozovic, and Dalida Chrysostomidou.

 8             MR. CEPIC:  Your Honour, Djuro Cepic, Jens Dieckmann, and

 9     Sabine Schulz for the Defence of Sredoje Lukic.

10             JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation] Thank you very much.

11             This Status Conference was convened pursuant to Rule 65 bis B and

12     C of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the Tribunal which requires

13     that a Status Conference shall be convened within 120 days after the last

14     status conference.  The main purpose of a Status Conference is to give

15     any detainee pending an appeals ruling the possibility to raise issues in

16     relation thereto including its mental -- his or her mental physical

17     condition of the accused.

18             First Status Conference hearing was held on the 13th of November,

19     2009, we are therefore meeting today for the second Status Conference.

20     At this juncture, I'd like to highlight the developments which have taken

21     place from the point of view of procedure since we last met.

22             First I'd like to recall that the Trial Chamber rendered its

23     judgement in this case on the 20th of July 2009.  The Office of the

24     Prosecutor filed its notice of appeal on the 19th of August, 2009,

25     against Sredoje Lukic.  The Defence of Milan Lukic as well as the Defence

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 1     of Sredoje Lukic have both filed their notice of appeals on the 19th of

 2     August, 2009.

 3             The Office of the Prosecutor filed the public version of its

 4     appeals brief against Sredoje Lukic on the 2nd of November, 2009.  The

 5     Defence of Sredoje Lukic filed its respondent brief on the 14th of

 6     December, 2009, and the Prosecutor filed its brief in reply on the 23rd

 7     of December, 2009.

 8             The Defence of Sredoje Lukic has also filed its appeals brief

 9     with a redacted public version and a confidential version on the 2nd of

10     November, 2009.  The Prosecutor filed his respondent brief on the 14th of

11     December, 2009, and Sredoje Lukic filed his brief in reply on the 29th of

12     December, 2009.

13             The Defence of Milan Lukic filed his appeals brief on the 17th of

14     December, 2009, pursuant to the decision issued by the Appeals Chamber on

15     the 30th of October, 2009, which granted him an extension of the time.

16     The Prosecutor filed the -- his respondent brief on the 5th of February,

17     2010.  And Milan Lukic filed his brief in reply on the 22nd of February,

18     2010.

19             I should like to thank the parties for having met the dead-lines

20     of submissions so as to ensure smooth running of the proceedings.

21     Furthermore, I should like to mention that the Appeals Chamber is now

22     seised of three confidential motions written by the Defence, and dated

23     respectively 8th of February, 2010; 10th of February, 2010; and 22nd of

24     February, 2010, in which it is asked to consider granting Milan Lukic the

25     possibility to introduce additional evidence.

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 1             And I would like to inform the parties that the Appeals Chamber

 2     will issue its decisions in due course, and that will take place before

 3     the hearing.

 4             Later on, the Appeals Chamber will set the date of the appeals

 5     hearing.  It is now too early to set the official time of the appeals

 6     hearing.  What is likely is that the appeals hearing will not be held

 7     before June 2010.

 8             I would now like to turn to the issue of detentions, conditions,

 9     and the state of the health of Mr. Milan and Sredoje Lukic.  Would you

10     like to mention any concerns regarding your conditions of detention or

11     your state of health.

12             Mr. Milan Lukic?

13             THE ACCUSED M. LUKIC: [Interpretation] As far as my health is

14     concerned, it's fine.  As far as the detention conditions are concerned,

15     well, when an innocent man is in detention, you know how it is.

16             JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation] Thank you.

17             Mr. Sredoje Lukic?

18             THE ACCUSED S. LUKIC: [Microphone not activated]

19             THE INTERPRETER:  Microphone for the accused, please.

20             JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation] Thank you.

21             I would now like to ask the parties whether at this juncture they

22     have any issues that they would like to deal with during this

23     Status Conference.

24             Let me first ask the OTP.

25             MS. MONCHY: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President.  We have

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 1     two items we would like to deal with quickly.

 2             First in regards of the filing of the public version and the

 3     redacted version of our response brief to Mr. Milan Lukic's appeals

 4     brief, we have not filed it yet because Milan Lukic has not filed its

 5     public redacted version of his own appeals brief.

 6             This being said, the Defence of Milan Lukic has told us before

 7     the hearing that they were about to file this public redacted version, so

 8     we'll be able to file our own respondent brief, our own brief public and

 9     redacted.

10             Second item, the date of the hearing and possible questions of

11     the Chamber, the Appeals Chamber, we thank the Appeals Chamber for having

12     told us that the hearing would not be held before June 2010.  It this

13     being said, and if this is possible, of course, we would like all parties

14     to be notified at least six weeks in advance of the questions put by the

15     Appeals Chamber as well as the date of the hearing in order to get

16     prepared and to get organised in an efficient manner.  Thank you.

17             JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation] Thank you, Ms. Monchy.

18             Now could the Defence of Sredoje Lukic and Milan Lukic tell us

19     what they have to say in response to the items mentioned by the OTP.

20     These two items.

21             MR. VISNJIC: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.

22             With regard to the first item, we are prepared to file a public

23     version of our appellant's brief in 24 hours, within 24 hours and a

24     public version of the reply in three or five days, so that would probably

25     be by Monday.  That would make it possible for the Prosecution to plan to

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 1     file their response at more or less the same time.

 2             As far as the dead-lines for the appellate hearing is concerned,

 3     I would like to draw the Appeals Chamber attention to the fact that we

 4     have not yet received a translation of the judgement, a translation into

 5     a language that the accused understand.  And, therefore, I would request

 6     that you grant us at least 30 days from the day the judgement is

 7     translated so that we can consult with my client, Milan Lukic, to see if

 8     he has any additional requests that concern the appeal and the

 9     allegations in the appeal.  We have worked with him on this basis, but we

10     believe that an official translation will make it possible for him to

11     fully understand the allegations made in the judgement.

12             Thank you, that would be all.

13             JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation] Thank you.

14             I take due note of the comments made by the parties on the first

15     issue.  And you will shortly get a written answer on this.  As far as the

16     translation of the judgement --

17                           [Trial Chamber and legal officer confer]

18             JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation] Regarding the translation of parts

19     of the judgement in a language that the accused can understand, let me

20     tell you that we also took due note of the request and will do everything

21     possible by contacting the linguistic department to make sure that the

22     translation is done swiftly.  It will be the translation of the relevant

23     parts of the judgement mainly.

24             As to the date of the appeals hearing, the Trial Chamber -- the

25     Appeals Chamber will do its utmost to accommodate both parties.  But let

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 1     me repeat that at this juncture, all I can say is that the appeals

 2     hearing will not be held before June 2010.

 3             Do the representative of Mr. Milan Lukic's Defence have anything

 4     else to raise?

 5             MR. VISNJIC: [Interpretation] No, Your Honours.  Thank you.

 6             JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation] Thank you.

 7             Now, what about the counsel of Defence for Mr. Sredoje Lukic, do

 8     you have anything to add?

 9             MR. CEPIC:  Thank you, Your Honour, we can have nothing to raise

10     now, just to say for the transcript our position is that we could join to

11     proposal of our learned friends from OTP related to the issue of

12     notification of commencement of oral hearing six week before the

13     commencement of that hearing.  Thank you very much.

14             JUDGE GUNEY: [Interpretation] Thank you.  We take due note of

15     this, and we will try to accommodate your wishes as far as dead-lines --

16     as far as notice is concerned.

17             As far as I'm concerned, I have no other issues on the agenda.

18     We can thus adjourn for the day, and I would like to thank the parties

19     for their participation, and I also would like to thank all the staff for

20     helping us.

21             This hearing is adjourned.

22                           --- Whereupon the Status Conference adjourned at

23                           2.36 p.m.

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