1 Friday, 8 March 2002

2 [Status Conference]

3 [Open session]

4 --- Upon commencing at 3.00 p.m.

5 JUDGE MAY: Let the registrar call the case.

6 THE REGISTRAR: Good afternoon, Your Honour. Case number IT-00-39

7 & 40-PT, the Prosecutor versus Momcilo Krajisnik and Biljana Plavsic.

8 JUDGE MAY: Yes. I'll hear the appearances.

9 MR. HARMON: Good afternoon, Judge May. Assisting me today is

10 Alan Tieger, to my immediate right, and to his right Mr. Thomas Hannis,

11 and to my left Ms. Carmela Annink-Javier.

12 JUDGE MAY: You better say who you are.

13 MR. HARMON: Mark Harmon.

14 MR. BRASHICH: Deyan Brashich for the Krajisnik Defence.

15 MR. PAVICH: Robert Pavich, Peter Murphy, and Eugene O'Sullivan

16 for the Plavsic defence.

17 JUDGE MAY: This is a Status Conference to determine the progress

18 being made. The first matter, and I'll hear the parties on the matters

19 they consider relevant in due course, but the matter which the Trial

20 Chamber would be particularly concerned to do would be to fix a date for

21 the final pre-trial brief for the Prosecution, fix a date for Defence

22 pre-trial briefs with a view to a trial in the autumn.

23 Mr. Harmon, you can assist.

24 MR. HARMON: Judge May, we have had a number of Rule 65 ter

25 conferences, and we have, at the last 65 ter conference, which was held on

1 the 6th of February, 2002, the parties met and discussed a variety of

2 items. One of the items which came up was a proposed schedule, and the

3 schedule that had been proposed to us by Ms. Featherstone was that the

4 Prosecutor's pre-trial brief be completed and submitted by the end of

5 April, with a Defence pre-trial brief at the end of July, and a Pre-Trial

6 Conference in early September. That was a schedule that we have

7 considered and discussed amongst ourselves, the Prosecution bench, and we

8 can meet that schedule.

9 JUDGE MAY: Very well. The end of April. In fact, the 30th of

10 April is a holiday. I'll be reminded if the 1st of May is a court day.

11 [Trial Chamber and Senior Legal Officer confer]

12 JUDGE MAY: The 2nd of May, I'm told, is the first available

13 date. So we'll order the final brief, list of witnesses and exhibits 2nd

14 of May.

15 MR. HARMON: Thank you.

16 JUDGE MAY: Before I turn to the Defence, are there any matters

17 which you would wish to raise, Mr. Harmon, or are there any matters which

18 the Trial Chamber should be apprised of? I know there are ongoing

19 problems and ongoing discussions between the parties.

20 MR. HARMON: I know Your Honour has been fully apprised of the

21 discussions and the undertakings that have been made by the parties in the

22 course of the Rule 65 ter conferences. One issue that has been raised

23 repeatedly is when we will file our Rule 92 bis submissions to the

24 Chamber, and as Your Honour may well be aware, I undertook to file within

25 14 days of a decision on our application for the amended consolidated

1 indictment I would make such a filing, and I have had some discussions,

2 albeit very brief discussions, with my colleagues from the Defence from

3 Plavsic team about their ability to comply with that undertaking that I

4 have made.

5 Now, I will tell you and I will defer to my colleagues to explain

6 the reasons that they have, but I'm willing to file a 92 bis submission

7 within the time period I said that I would, but I have submitted to the

8 Defence as well a list of witness statements for which we're seeking

9 admission under 92 bis (B) and (D). I've submitted that schedule to the

10 Defence.

11 It is my understanding that the Defence intends to examine that

12 list and will in good faith report to me which of those statements are

13 acceptable and which are not and give me the reasons why. It may not be

14 the complete list, but they will take a good faith effort -- make a good

15 faith effort at complying with that deadline, and I am certainly amenable

16 to be flexible myself on the undertaking that we have made. If the

17 Defence has some concerns and some issues that relate to some of these

18 issues, I will defer my filing of the 92 bis filing.

19 So I think, Your Honour, that issue on the first and large number

20 of potential witnesses for which 92 bis written evidence can be admitted

21 has certainly been addressed by the parties. The witnesses, the majority

22 of those witnesses, the substantial majority of those witnesses, have been

23 identified and the statements have been produced. There remain

24 approximately, at this point in time, 30 additional witness statements for

25 which we're in the process of obtaining attestations and, therefore, there

1 can be no submission as to those 92 bis statements. I say that the number

2 30 is an approximation.

3 That's the first matter I'd like to bring to Your Honour's

4 attention. In addition, there have been discussions throughout the

5 pre-trial proceedings as to other events that would be triggered by the

6 Rule -- by the decision of the Trial Chamber on the amended indictment.

7 One of those relates to adjudicated facts. And we have submitted -- I

8 think the last time we submitted - we, the Prosecution - submitted a list

9 of adjudicated facts was in November, and I understood the Defence

10 objection that until they had the opportunity to see the charging

11 instrument in its final form, they were not in a position to respond to

12 our request to agree on certain adjudicated facts.

13 We have now received the decision of the Trial Chamber on the

14 amended indictment, and therefore, I think we will be able to proceed

15 fairly quickly on a submission that relates to adjudicated facts.

16 There also is the issue of the expert witness statements that have

17 been submitted. There were approximately 14 of those statements filed by

18 the office of the Prosecutor, and of those 14, there were black and white

19 photographs in 11 of those -- ten of those submissions, and I received a

20 request from my colleagues from the Defence that those photographs were

21 not of sufficient quality to be examined by the Defence expert who was

22 examining the exhumation reports. There was a request made to me to get

23 colour photographs in lieu of the black and white photographs and submit

24 those to the Defence. I received, pursuant to that request, one set of

25 colour photographs. I haven't had the time to show them to the Defence.

1 There are approximately a thousand photographs. I'm going to be

2 reproducing those photographs and making them available to the Defence.

3 And there are three reports, expert reports, that I filed that have no

4 photographs whatsoever.

5 Now, it's my understanding that the expert who has -- the joint

6 Defence expert who is analysing the expert submissions made by us has

7 completed his report, and therefore I expect to receive, unless I hear

8 something to the contrary, some information about the acceptability of at

9 least three of those Rule 94 bis reports.

10 The issue of translations, of course, we are continuing to grapple

11 with. My colleague Mr. Tieger is in a position to report on an initiative

12 that we have made in respect of trying to ameliorate the problem of

13 untranslated documents. We are pleased that the initiative that has been

14 undertaken is in a position to proceed forthwith. And I will defer, if

15 Your Honour pleases, to my colleague Mr. Tieger, who can at least report

16 to Your Honour on the status of that initiative.

17 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

18 MR. TIEGER: Your Honour, I'm pleased to bring this matter again

19 to the Court's attention. As you know, it was raised once in the 65 ter

20 conference. It was followed up by a specific proposal which was brought

21 to the attention of the Court. As you may know, it emerged from

22 discussions between the Defence and the Prosecution, and I'm heartened

23 that the response from the Defence has been a positive one.

24 In sum, this proposal is as follows: The Prosecution will submit

25 to the Defence draft or unofficial translations of documents. That means

1 documents that were prepared either by CLSS but have not been yet produced

2 in final form, or documents -- document translations produced by language

3 assistants who are not technically a part of CLSS. Thereupon, the Defence

4 will review those documents within a specified time period and return them

5 to the Prosecution, advising whether or not the translation as provided is

6 acceptable or whether or not the Defence wishes to see certain revisions.

7 At that point, the Prosecution will have the document, will also have the

8 specified period of time within which to respond. If there is no

9 agreement at that stage, the documents will then be submitted to CLSS for

10 resolution of the dispute.

11 Now, clearly that procedure depends upon resources. Before making

12 the proposal formally, I discussed this matter with the Registry. The

13 Registry has agreed to provide the Defence with two translators each for

14 purposes of this review, as part of what will amount, I believe, to a

15 pilot project. I believe that all of us hope and expect that with the

16 success of the initial phase of this project, that the resources devoted

17 to it will expand, making available to all of us a pool of translation

18 resources previously unavailable for this purpose and hopefully breaking

19 the translation logjam.

20 As I mentioned, I've discussed the proposal further with the

21 Defence. It appears to me, based on those discussions, that the only

22 remaining issues are those of mechanics, precisely the details of

23 implementing the proposal rather than the benefit and value of the

24 proposal in theory.

25 JUDGE MAY: And that can be done administratively rather than by

1 the Court?

2 MR. TIEGER: Yes, Your Honour.

3 JUDGE MAY: Thank you.

4 Yes, Mr. Harmon, are there any other areas to deal with?

5 MR. HARMON: No, Your Honour.

6 JUDGE MAY: There was the difficult question of the videos, I seem

7 to remember.

8 MR. HARMON: There is an issue of videos that I was expecting to

9 further discuss with my colleague, Mr. Brashich, but the issue of the

10 videos was that there was certainly a number of videos that we had

11 submitted to the Defence, and some of these videos did not have

12 transcripts. And at the -- I believe it was the February -- or two 65 ter

13 conferences ago there was an assurance that the transcript work would be

14 provided by the 1st of February, and since then I haven't had time to talk

15 to Mr. Brashich. I have not received any of those transcripts. I have

16 obviously made an inquiry as to at some point in time receiving at least

17 the work of progress, the works that had been completed up to the point of

18 February 1st, even if the complete project is not complete. So yes, there

19 has been a discussion as to the videos, and I'm told there has been some

20 work done on those transcripts, but Mr. Brashich and I have not had an

21 opportunity to meet prior to coming here today, to clarify what the

22 situation is.

23 JUDGE MAY: Thank you.

24 Yes, I'll hear from the Defence. Mr. Brashich.

25 MR. BRASHICH: Good afternoon, Your Honour. I am mindful of the

1 comments made by the Court with regard to May 2, with regard to the final

2 pre-trial brief, and I've listened to the comments by my colleague in the

3 Prosecution's office, and I agree with some of his submissions and

4 positions and disagree with others.

5 The first issue that was raised, Your Honour, was the 92 bis

6 statements. I wrote to Mr. Harmon this morning and advised him that I

7 would, within the time constraints that the Trial Chamber has made, would

8 act upon the list of proposed witnesses and advise which we will oppose

9 and seek cross-examination.

10 With regard to the adjudicated facts, my predecessor has gone over

11 at least a portion - or so it has been reported back to me - of the

12 adjudicated facts, and I believe that within recent memory of man, the

13 First World War, the prior adjudicated facts can be agreed upon. The rest

14 I'm willing to address with Mr. Harmon.

15 With regard to the expert witness statements, I received a

16 memorandum from Mr. Harmon that it was his understanding at the last 65

17 ter conference that we had, that the expert witness that the Defence, both

18 the Defences had retained, had completed his work. That is just not so.

19 It awaits those thousand-some-odd photographs in colour.

20 With regard to the three expert witness statements which did not

21 contain any photographs, I'm due to be in Belgrade tomorrow. I will check

22 on it and report back. If they're finished, of course I'll turn them over

23 to the Prosecution.

24 Mr. Tieger speaks about the translations. We had some

25 communication with regard to translations. Mr. Tieger reported as to his

1 discussions with the Registry and this idea of four translators working

2 with the Defence. I had inquired some 20, 25 days ago as to the

3 mechanics. I have not had a reply to that, so I cannot report to the

4 Trial Chamber the Krajisnik Defence position on the translators.

5 With regard to the videos and transcripts, in the last Status

6 Conference, or two Status Conferences ago, where I was physically present,

7 I advised Ms. Featherstone that it had come to a dead stop. The

8 transcripts are no longer being prepared or done. And I'll get back to

9 that issue.

10 I had sent Ms. Featherstone in Chambers, in advance of this

11 particular Status Conference, a suggested number of questions that should

12 be directed to the Prosecution. I have not had a response from Chambers,

13 and I presume that those questions were not passed on to the Prosecution.

14 This again ties in with the translations. At least from the point

15 of view of the Krajisnik Defence, we do not know at this point in time

16 exactly how many additional documents remain untranslated and when the

17 translation, assuming both the joint effort with the four translators or

18 without that joint effort, will be done.

19 Now, with regard to the July date for the Defence to submit its

20 pre-trial brief.

21 JUDGE MAY: I'm open to argument, of course, about that.

22 MR. BRASHICH: Well, let me tell you, Judge --

23 JUDGE MAY: Just --

24 MR. BRASHICH: Yes.

25 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

1 MR. BRASHICH: Let me tell you, Judge, the position the Krajisnik

2 Defence finds itself in at this point. Under the regime that exists, the

3 Registry has designated this case as a Category 1 case; most serious. And

4 Krajisnik Defence, before I got involved, was allotted a certain amount of

5 hours and time. We have used up those hours. At this present time, the

6 Krajisnik Defence comprises of me, one clerical assistant, and two

7 investigators. That's all that we have in the budget. I am in

8 discussions with the Registry to make to us available additional

9 resources. I had requested of the Registry to inquire of the Prosecution

10 how many full-time attorneys are employed by the Prosecution, how many

11 paralegals, and other resources the Prosecution has.

12 JUDGE MAY: Let's short circuit that.

13 MR. BRASHICH: Sorry?

14 JUDGE MAY: Let's short circuit that.

15 MR. BRASHICH: I'm finishing, Your Honour. I'm putting the Court

16 on notice that unless we have --

17 JUDGE MAY: Just a moment. Finish the interpretation.

18 MR. BRASHICH: Oh, I'm sorry.

19 JUDGE MAY: What I was going to raise with you -- I'm not stopping

20 you. When I say, "Let's short circuit it," you don't have a co-counsel?

21 MR. BRASHICH: No, Your Honour.

22 Now, to finish my thought, Your Honour, I have consulted with my

23 client, and we have spoken long and hard about it. Unless I can see that

24 my professional responsibilities with regard to Mr. Krajisnik and the

25 enormity of this case can be met, I'm going to make the motion to

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1 withdraw, because I'm not going to put Mr. Krajisnik's life in jeopardy by

2 not being able to give him the full attention and support that I need in

3 his defence. But that is still under negotiations with the Registry, but

4 I just wanted to place the Trial Chamber on notice that there is a

5 possibility of a change in counsel or no counsel, for that matter.

6 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Brashich, your responsibility is to

7 Mr. Krajisnik. You have undertaken his defence for a year or so.

8 MR. BRASHICH: Yes, Your Honour.

9 JUDGE MAY: It is, of course, important that you have the

10 resources available. No doubt there's a reason why you don't have

11 co-counsel, but I don't know what it is. I would expect you to have

12 co-counsel in a case of this sort.

13 MR. BRASHICH: Thank you, Your Honour.

14 JUDGE MAY: Further than that, I don't think it's necessary to go

15 at the moment.

16 MR. BRASHICH: Yes, Your Honour.

17 JUDGE MAY: But supposing you have the resources, how long are you

18 asking for for a pre-trial brief? Bearing in mind the necessity of

19 getting this case on to trial.

20 MR. BRASHICH: I'm bearing that very much in mind, Your Honour,

21 especially since my client is in gaol. If that were not a factor, I would

22 seek more time. However, I think because my client is in gaol, that I

23 think July 30th is an unworkable date, especially in light of summer

24 recesses, and I would ask for September 1, Your Honour.

25 JUDGE MAY: Thank you.

1 MR. BRASHICH: Thank you, Your Honour.

2 JUDGE MAY: Mr. Pavich.

3 MR. PAVICH: Thank you. Thank you, Your Honour.

4 Your Honour, I have little to add to what's already been presented

5 to the Court this afternoon. Two points, I think, though, are worth

6 making and highlighting since they've already been made in part.

7 First, we do expect to do everything that we can to comply with

8 whatever schedules the Court presents us. Toward that end, we've been

9 working diligently with the Prosecution in order to meet the various

10 deadlines that we anticipate and that we've already been given. There

11 have been two major obstacles in our cooperative effort. One, of course,

12 as the Court is well aware, is the translation problem. The other is

13 problems that have arisen with regard to the ability of the Prosecution to

14 provide disclosure relating to reciprocal discovery and to Rule 68

15 matters.

16 My colleague Mr. O'Sullivan has been in intensive discussions over

17 the past several days with the Prosecution, and I would ask that I be

18 allowed to defer to him with regard to these matters, with the leave of

19 the Court, so that he can explain the status of the situation.

20 JUDGE MAY: Yes.

21 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Your Honour, I'll also respond to several other

22 matters. First, 92 bis statements and the -- our position on those

23 statements.

24 Mr. Harmon's quite correct that we are in a position now to begin

25 that process with the Prosecution. There will be, in the short-term,

1 statements to which we can agree and will not seek leave to

2 cross-examine. There are, however, a second category of witnesses where

3 we are seeking deferral until the filing of the Prosecution's pre-trial

4 brief so that we will be in a position where we are comfortable to say

5 either way whether we will seek leave for cross-examination or not. But

6 having said that, there are at this time a good number of statements where

7 we can agree with the Prosecution to fast track 92 bis statement process.

8 I might add, however, that some of the 92 bis statements are still

9 in the B/C/S language and the translation problem is rearing its head

10 again in regard to those statements, but in that context, we can move

11 forward.

12 The same applies, Your Honour, in regard to adjudicated facts. We

13 are in a position immediately to meet with the Prosecution and agree on

14 some and identify where we dispute with the Prosecution on others.

15 There are some matters that have come out of the most recent

16 Rule 65 ter conference on February 7th with the legal officer, and I think

17 it's important that we present those to you, Your Honour, from our

18 perspective and indicate how we see this as being problematic in the

19 preparation of this trial.

20 First the expert witnesses. The Prosecution has stated that he

21 has a demographics expert, a propaganda expert, a constitutional law

22 expert, and an administrative law expert. We have not received expert

23 reports from any of those witnesses. I hasten to add that we've been made

24 aware that these witnesses are on the Prosecution witness list since

25 August 31st. We would expect that, given the nature of the complexity we

1 can anticipate of their expert reports, that the sooner we get those the

2 better, and we've been waiting months now for them.

3 The second matter or category of witnesses that arises out of the

4 last 65 ter are what we've been calling the international witnesses.

5 Those are people from international organisations or government

6 representatives. The Prosecution says he has 14 more such statements to

7 disclose to us. In our submission, the Prosecution has a duty under

8 Rule 66 to disclose statements from those people when he knows that he

9 intends to call them. And he has identified 14, apparently. We don't

10 know who they are, and we haven't yet received statements in connection

11 with those potential witnesses.

12 On the issue of translation, we share Mr. Tieger's enthusiasm for

13 the pilot project. I do want to put this in perspective, however. To

14 date, we have received 9.689 documents from the Prosecution as disclosure

15 under Rule 65 ter or the ongoing process of the pre-trial brief

16 disclosure. Our best estimate is that between 50 and 60 per cent of those

17 documents are not translated. That means, Your Honour, between 4.800 and

18 5.600 documents. And I can tell you it's daunting in the least to stand

19 in front of a wall of over 5.000 documents that are not in a language that

20 you understand, that are considered by the Prosecution to be relevant to

21 its case and not be able to examine those documents or understand them,

22 let alone digest them and fit them into our anticipated response to the

23 Prosecution's case. It is most daunting, Your Honour.

24 The videos, as Your Honour's aware, I'm sure, from our last 65 ter

25 meeting, we are a long way from being prepared to be able to work with

1 those videos. There are over 366 video sequences. Approximately 82 have

2 been transcribed. Over 280 need translation. It's a similar problem to

3 the 5.000 untranslated documents. They're in a language that we cannot

4 use.

5 I turn to reciprocal discovery and the timing of reciprocal

6 discovery in the context of the timetable we're envisaging. The

7 Prosecution has said that they are expecting to meet a reciprocal

8 discovery deadline in March, and we fully anticipate receiving much of a

9 request that we made in December this month. We have, however, been

10 informed that one collection of documents in possession of the Prosecution

11 cannot be disclosed to us until May 31st. Now, we don't know the quantity

12 of documents, and again, we don't know necessarily which language these

13 documents will be in.

14 Your Honour knows that we've been working constructively with the

15 Prosecution in our endeavours to facilitate reciprocal disclosure, but it

16 has come to our attention and we believe that the fact that the

17 Prosecution can provide no index of its categorisation of its documents --

18 we submitted to the Prosecution for such an index to help us determine

19 their organisational principle so that we could set specific parameters on

20 our requests. Your Honour, we're dealing with the trial of a political

21 leader whose guilt or innocence will be determined in large part by

22 documents. That is why we need these documents.

23 And finally, and lastly in regards to reciprocal discovery is

24 Rule 70. Mr. Harmon has informed us that some of the documents we've

25 requested on reciprocal discovery are protected by Rule 70 and that he has

1 requested the provider to lift the confidentiality. But again, timing is

2 of the essence. Once the request is made to that provider, it's out of

3 the party's hands, and we have to wait for a response from that provider.

4 And again, quantity of documents is unknown to us, the language in which

5 they will be -- in which they're prepared is unknown to us. And I wish to

6 reiterate that in a political leadership case, when we make a submission

7 for reciprocal discovery for materials which we think are material to our

8 defence, it's important that we have them to prepare our defence.

9 So those are still the obstacles there, Your Honour. Some of them

10 are institutional. Some of them are beyond the control of the parties.

11 But the fact of the matter is it impacts directly on our ability to

12 prepare and to respond in a timely way.

13 Those are my submissions.

14 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Thank you. Mr. Pavich, is there anything you

15 want to add?

16 MR. PAVICH: No, Your Honour. With respect to the question that

17 you put to Mr. Brashich, I think our response would be that it's very

18 difficult for us to give the Court an assessment, an intelligent

19 assessment, of when we will be in a position to provide our pre-trial

20 brief. It may be that we will have to look at the material that will be

21 forthcoming in April or on 2 May from the Prosecution and that at that

22 time we'll, for the first time, be able to give the Court an intelligent

23 assessment of when we believe we will be able to provide a product that

24 will be worthy of the Court's attention.

25 In lieu of the fact that -- well, with respect to that, I would

1 suggest that Mr. Brashich's deadline at this point or his suggestion of

2 1 September is realistic, but we probably won't be able to make a firm

3 commitment to that until the materials that have been outlined at this

4 point that we're awaiting, that Mr. O'Sullivan has indicated are still out

5 there that we haven't seen, are made available to us, both with respect to

6 the translations of documents which the Prosecution intends to use and as

7 to those documents that would be covered under reciprocal discovery.

8 JUDGE MAY: I shall make the order for the Defence pre-trial brief

9 for the 1st of September. It seems to me that that is realistic, given

10 the date of the Prosecution final brief, four months. I hear what

11 Mr. Pavic says, but it's important that this trial do be brought on rather

12 than waiting longer, and therefore this is an important step towards it.

13 Dealing with the matters which Mr. O'Sullivan raised, he raised

14 questions about the Prosecution expert reports and the international

15 witness statements. Can you assist with that, Mr. Harmon?

16 MR. HARMON: Yes, Judge May, I certainly can. In respect of the

17 international witnesses, the reason the Defence hasn't received some of

18 those statements is because they're protected by Rule 70 at this point,

19 and we are awaiting the provider authority to disclose those statements.

20 Some statements are works that are still statements being taken, so the

21 statements have not been completed.

22 In respect of the expert witnesses, some of these experts have not

23 yet been selected, and therefore no reports exist. Now, we have filed a

24 number of expert reports. I have made it clear before Your Honour and to

25 the Defence that subject to very sensitive experts for some issues, we

1 intend to provide, as soon as we can and as soon as we get the expert

2 reports and as soon as they're completed, we'll provide those to the

3 Defence. That's an undertaking we have made in the past. We stand by

4 that undertaking. But we have not completed, in some cases, the process

5 of the identification of the particular witness or the completion of some

6 expert reports.

7 Now, some expert reports -- I can give you an example. Some

8 expert reports deal with -- are very, very difficult in the short term to

9 complete because of conditions that exist in theatre. I don't care to

10 expand on that now. I can explain that to Ms. Featherstone. I have, in

11 fact, mentioned it once to Ms. Featherstone. I can explain it to my

12 colleagues. But we will complete these reports as quickly as we can, and

13 we will provide them to the Defence.

14 Now, Mr. O'Sullivan mentioned the Rule 92 bis statements and his

15 undertaking to complete, as soon as possible, a review of those

16 statements. To assist the Defence, I provided them with a document that

17 identified the number of witnesses, the category of whether we are going

18 to be seeking admission in terms of a written statement or in terms of a

19 transcript from a previous proceeding, or both. These witnesses - there

20 are 95 - they are all crime-base witnesses. These are all people who

21 support the crime elements in the cases itself. They are not

22 international witnesses, they are not expert witnesses, they are not

23 background witnesses.

24 In respect of the videos, let me provide Your Honour with the

25 statistics that we have in respect of that. The total number of videos

1 that we've disclosed to the Defence are 18 videos. There are 316

2 sequences disclosed, 205 transcripts have been disclosed, and there are 82

3 translations have been disclosed. My colleague Mr. Brashich mentioned in

4 the course of this hearing that the expert was no longer able to complete

5 the work that was done in respect of transcribing those videotape

6 sequences.

7 Your Honour, that may be the case, but the sooner we can get the

8 transcripts of the video sequences that have been completed, the better,

9 and we would ask that Your Honour direct the Defence to provide those to

10 us, because there is a process of dealing with those transcriptions. We

11 have to review them for their accuracy, we have to then submit for proper

12 translation those video sequences that have been now transcribed

13 properly. So while at the last Status Conference Mr. Brashich informed

14 Ms. Featherstone that the work had stopped, we certainly are anxious to

15 receive the work that had been completed up to that point in time. It

16 would advance, very frankly, this process of discovery and advance our

17 efforts in respect of identifying the videotapes that will be used

18 ultimately in evidence.

19 In respect of a reciprocal discovery, yes, my colleague

20 Mr. O'Sullivan did accurately describe that there was one collection that

21 was a problem for us. What the procedure has been has been that the

22 Defence has identified for us categories of documents they want to

23 receive. We have pursued identifying and collecting those documents and

24 we have submitted to the Defence a significant number of documents

25 responsive to the categories that they have identified. We undertook to

1 provide to the Defence the remaining documents by the 31st of March, and

2 we will provide to -- there are three collections left that need to be

3 reviewed for those responsive documents. I was informed today that

4 yesterday there was a problem with an optical scanning portion of the

5 operation that related to one collection, and therefore we were not in a

6 position to provide the one collection to them at the date that we had

7 promised to provide it to them. The remaining two categories we will

8 provide -- we will review and complete our review and will provide to the

9 Defence by the 2nd of April. So I think that is obviously significant and

10 substantial compliance with what the Defence has requested.

11 In respect of Rule 70, as Your Honour is aware and as my

12 colleagues, I'm sure, from the Defence are aware, we can only make a

13 request to the Rule 70 provider, and we can ask them to move with

14 alacrity, but ultimately the decision and the decision-making process that

15 is undertaken by the provider sometimes is long and onerous and complex,

16 it has to go through many bureaucratic layers, and we can't expedite that

17 any more than we have already made a request, saying, in some cases when

18 we ask for documents to be provided to us, that it's urgent. We can't do

19 any more than that. So we are taking all the necessary steps that we can

20 to ensure that, one, the Defence gets, as soon as possible, the materials

21 necessary to prepare their Defence, and we are moving as quickly as we can

22 and we are working cooperatively with the Defence to find ways to ensure

23 that they get the materials in a timely fashion. That is what I --

24 THE INTERPRETER: Could you slow down, Mr. Harmon, please.

25 MR. HARMON: [Previous translation continues]... privy through

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1 Ms. Featherstone and through the Rule 65 ter conferences what undertakings

2 we have made and what has been produced in the course of this pre-trial

3 phase. We will continue to work --

4 THE INTERPRETER: Mr. Harmon, could you slow down, please.

5 JUDGE MAY: You're being asked to slow down.

6 MR. HARMON: And we will continue to try to expedite the procedure

7 and find solutions to problems that will confront us in this ongoing

8 process. Thank you.

9 JUDGE MAY: Let me just deal with one thing. Mr. Brashich, you

10 were asked to provide the transcripts of the video sequences. Do you have

11 any which you can hand over?

12 MR. BRASHICH: Yes, Your Honour. I'll provide those --

13 THE INTERPRETER: Mr. Brashich, your microphone.

14 MR. BRASHICH: Your Honour, we will provide the transcripts of

15 those that have been transcribed to Mr. Harmon.

16 JUDGE MAY: In 7 or 14 days, if you can.

17 MR. BRASHICH: Yes, Your Honour. As soon as I get to Belgrade.

18 JUDGE MAY: Yes. Very well.

19 MR. O'SULLIVAN: Your Honour, one final comment, or perhaps

20 question, regarding the pilot project that Mr. Tieger described, and

21 perhaps he can be of assistance to all of us. And the question is this:

22 How many pages are ready for analysis immediately, how many have this

23 draft translation, and how fast will we go through the 5.000 or so

24 untranslated documents? How soon can they be translated in this draft

25 form so that we can work with the language assistants?

1 JUDGE MAY: Mr. O'Sullivan, I think that's a matter which

2 Mr. Tieger can deal with you directly or through administrative means.

3 I'm glad there has been this level of cooperation, and the Court would

4 encourage it, particularly with a view to starting this trial as soon as

5 possible.

6 Mr. Brashich, is there any matter you want to raise about your

7 client's detention?

8 MR. BRASHICH: No, Your Honour.

9 JUDGE MAY: Thank you. Unless there are any other matters, we'll

10 adjourn. The next Status Conference should be fairly shortly after the

11 Prosecution pre-trial brief is delivered. What I'll say at the moment is

12 it should take place during the week of the 6th of May, and we'll fix a

13 date as soon as possible for it.

14 We'll adjourn now.

15 --- Whereupon the Status Conference adjourned at

16 3.49 p.m.

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