Page 22251
1 Thursday, 13 September 2007
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 --- Upon commencing at 8.59 a.m.
5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Could you please call the case,
6 Mr. Registrar.
7 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours. This is case number
8 IT-04-74-T, the Prosecutor versus Prlic et al. Thank you, Your Honours.
9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. Registrar. Now,
10 this Thursday I greet -- I welcome everybody, representatives of the
11 Prosecution and the Defence, as well as the accused and all the people who
12 are helping us in our work.
13 We will now continue the examination of the witness, and I will
14 therefore ask now the registrar to lower the blinds unless there is some
15 question. Yes?
16 MS. TOMASEGOVIC TOMIC: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your
17 Honours. Good morning to everyone in the courtroom. Before proceedings
18 this morning, we handed over for the Trial Chamber and for the Prosecutor
19 parts of the transcript or, rather, the statement this witness made to the
20 investigators that we used, and they have been separated with pieces of
21 paper and a pink marker indicates the excerpt that we used.
22 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Now we are going into closed
23 session.
24 [Closed session]
25 (redacted)
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6 [Open session]
7 THE REGISTRAR: We're in open session, Your Honours.
8 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Could we please lift the blinds.
9 As far as next week is concerned - I shall not give the name of
10 the witness - the Prosecution will have five hours, undoubtedly much less.
11 Let's assume that we use that as a working basis. The Defence will have
12 the same. And if you cannot agree amongst yourselves, Mr. Coric will have
13 an hour and a half; Mr. Stojic will have an hour and 15 minutes; Mr. Prlic
14 will have one hour; Mr. Praljak will have 45 minutes; Mr. Petkovic will
15 have 45 minutes; Mr. Pusic, 45 minutes. Six hours all in all for the
16 Defence counsel.
17 Also, second announcement I'd like to make, I shall read this out
18 slowly.
19 Pursuant to Rule 67(A) of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, the
20 Trial Chamber -- the Trial Chamber would have to set a deadline for the
21 Defence so that it can inform the Prosecution whether or not it wishes to
22 invoke a defence of alibi or a special -- or any special defence.
23 Before setting such a deadline, the Trial Chamber would like to
24 know what the opinion of both parties is. In other words, according to
25 them, at what point in time should the Defence inform the Prosecutor of
Page 22294
1 such an intention.
2 The Trial Chamber would like to get the position of both parties
3 on this matter in writing by Wednesday, the 19th of September, 2007, at
4 the latest.
5 Mr. Karnavas.
6 MR. KARNAVAS: Good morning, Mr. President. Yes. Yes.
7 JUDGE PRANDLER: I apologise to you, Mr. Karnavas, for
8 interrupting you, but it is still a kind of correction here. When the
9 President has announced about the partition of the time, then he said that
10 the Prosecution will have five hours, and then he added later on, but
11 probably it was the wrong translation, that the Defence will have the
12 same, that is, five hours. But later on when he detailed the partition
13 for the Defence, then he said that altogether six hours. So I would only
14 like to clarify that the Prosecution will have five hours and the Defence
15 six hours. Thank you.
16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes, that's what I did say.
17 Five hours for the Prosecution, is six hours for the Defence. Maybe there
18 was a mistake.
19 MR. KARNAVAS: Good morning, Mr. President; good morning,
20 Your Honours. My concerns are with respect to a witness coming up,
21 Mr. Miller. We have yet to receive the decision. We know that we should
22 be getting it by the end of the week. My concerns are that the
23 Prosecution has added on their exhibit list certain presidential
24 transcripts. Now, in keeping with the previous ruling with respect to an
25 OTP employee, Mr. Sudetic, this Trial Chamber found that it did not need
Page 22295
1 Mr. Sudetic to come in and read or interpret the transcription for you.
2 Mr. Miller is in the same position. Initially his report dealt with
3 reading newspaper clippings and basically telling us what was former US
4 President Ulysses Grant said, "War is hell." I think that's the essence
5 of his testimony. We don't need an expert to tell us that during war bad
6 things happen.
7 But I am concerned that now they're trying to sneak in through the
8 basement window where they can't come in the front door. The front door
9 has been bolted. They were told Sudetic cannot come and now they want to
10 use Miller because maybe his pedigree, he's got a Ph.D. as I understand
11 it, maybe because of that, they think Mr. Miller can come in and opine
12 about certain events with respect to what was being said and recorded in
13 these presidential transcripts.
14 So therefore, Your Honour, I would ask that we get some
15 clarification on this. I am of the belief and I've stated this that
16 Mr. Miller is not an expert and offers nothing, zero. His report is not
17 even a report, it's laughable if -- if you could laugh at it. And I don't
18 think that we should be wasting time with this sort of testimony and I
19 suggest that we get an early ruling so that the Prosecution can make
20 further arrangements to fill in that week with some witnesses as opposed
21 to coming back saying, "Well, we didn't have enough time to bring in
22 another witness." So we lose that one week of time. So that's my
23 concern, Mr. President.
24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Mr. Stringer, just
25 something which probably escaped me, but Mr. Miller, like Mr. Sudetic, is
Page 22296
1 employed by the OTP; is that right?
2 MR. STRINGER: I don't think so, Mr. President. I don't think
3 he's an employee of the OTP. And on this -- and on this point I've got to
4 confess that I don't have a lot of information that I can provide the
5 Trial Chamber with respect to this witness. The one thing I can say for
6 sure is that if Mr. Miller is not permitted to testify next week then we
7 will have another week of no evidence, because today being Thursday and
8 again we'll have the situation that we had recently. So I don't know that
9 we could recover at this late date if Miller does not testify.
10 Beyond that, what's happening in respect to the transcripts or
11 whether -- further information about his status regretfully,
12 Mr. President, I can't inform you. I can -- I can get informed if I can
13 reach the people and provide more information to you, but at this moment I
14 can't do it and I apologise for that.
15 MR. KARNAVAS: Mr. President, I --
16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well, we --
17 MR. KARNAVAS: Perhaps you misunderstood me. Sudetic was the
18 in-house Prosecution employee, and so since they can't use him now they've
19 gone to outside experts who prepared another report, but that has nothing
20 to do really with the presidential transcripts. And my concern is why is
21 it that we need to have an expert to talk -- to read and opine on the
22 transcripts when you can do that yourselves, and that was the ruling on
23 Sudetic.
24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Stringer, just one point of
25 clarification. Next week, a witness has been scheduled for four days, so
Page 22297
1 that will not be a problem because Mr. Miller had been scheduled for the
2 week after that, and the Trial Chamber deliberated on the matter
3 yesterday. We're going to hand down a decision on this in the next few
4 hours. I was going say in a split second; that's not the case. In the
5 next few hours. So given that the deadline is 4.00 in the afternoon. So
6 the decision will be made before 4.00 this afternoon.
7 If there are no further questions, I'd like to thank all the
8 people in this courtroom, and we shall meet again on Monday at a quarter
9 past 2.00. Thank you.
10 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 10.50 a.m.,
11 to be reconvened on Monday, the 17th day
12 of September, 2007, at 2.15 p.m.
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