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Page 49085

1 Monday, 8 February 2010

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 --- Upon commencing at 2.21 p.m.

5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Registrar, could you call the

6 case, please.

7 THE REGISTRAR: Good afternoon, Your Honours. Good afternoon,

8 everyone in and around the courtroom. This is case number IT-04-74-T,

9 the Prosecutor versus Prlic et al. Thank you, Your Honours.

10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you, Registrar.

11 Today is Monday, the 8th of February, 2010. I would like to

12 greet everyone in the courtroom and the accused and the counsels, all the

13 members of the OTP, as well as everybody else helping us within this

14 courtroom.

15 I have two short oral decisions to read, but I will give the

16 floor first to the Registrar who has some IC numbers to give us.

17 Apparently not. Okay. Very well.

18 Motion from the Petkovic Defence and to give a date for the

19 92 bis request and the written request for guidelines number 9.

20 The Chamber is asking the Petkovic Defence to let them know at

21 which date they intend to file 92 bis motions and asking for evidence to

22 be admitted through written motions according to guideline number 9 of

23 the ruling of the 24th of April, 2008, and this as quickly as possible.

24 Obviously any potential motions will have to be lodged before the end of

25 the case being brought forward by the Petkovic Defence. In other words,

Page 49086

1 please let us know when you are planning to file those motions.

2 Mrs. Alaburic?

3 MS. ALABURIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, good afternoon to

4 you too. Good afternoon to everybody in the courtroom.

5 Before I answer, I would like to introduce our new team member.

6 She is our legal assistant, Tamara Miserda, she is sitting in the last

7 bench but I'm sure she will move forward soon.

8 Let me answer your question now. The General Petkovic Defence

9 does not intend to submit a request to allow statements by some witnesses

10 according to 92 bis rule.

11 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you. We are welcoming

12 Tamara Miserda, and we hope that she will be very successful while

13 working within the Petkovic Defence team. And you are lucky to have

14 someone who is going to help you, because our Chamber does not very

15 have -- does not have very often assistants helping us, apart from those

16 that we already have.

17 Second oral ruling, regarding the response time for the motion of

18 the Stojic Defence dealing with additional time for the cross-examination

19 of Milivoj Petkovic.

20 On the 8th of February, 2010, the Stojic Defence has requested a

21 confidential motion to have extra leave in order to cross-examine

22 Milivoj Petkovic. Given that Milivoj Petkovic is going to appear very

23 soon, namely on the -- Thursday, the 11th of February, 2010, this

24 Trial Chamber is asking the parties to lodge their response to the

25 Stojic Defence at the latest on the 9th of February, 2010, and this

Page 49087

1 before 12.00 noon.

2 So there we go. I believe that Mr. Stringer wants to take the

3 floor.

4 MR. STRINGER: Thank you and good afternoon, Mr. President. Good

5 afternoon, Your Honours, counsel, and everyone else in and around the

6 courtroom.

7 I can inform the Trial Chamber that the Prosecution is already in

8 the process of preparing a response in respect of the Defence -- the

9 various Defence filings for additional time for the cross-examination of

10 General Petkovic. So I don't see any difficulties at all in getting that

11 filed within the time-frame that you've just -- you've just set out.

12 The other brief matter I wanted to raise with the -- the Chamber,

13 Mr. President, was that, as you probably know, on the 3rd of February,

14 last week, the Prosecution filed a motion asking for permission to submit

15 a reply, and then we submitted a proposed reply to the Coric Defence's

16 response to the Prosecution's request for additional time to

17 cross-examine the four Coric witnesses who are scheduled to give evidence

18 during March under Rule 92 ter. And just for the record, Mr. President,

19 we just wanted the Trial Chamber to know that we're aware that the

20 Trial Chamber's practice and preference is to consider whether to grant

21 leave to file a reply before the reply is -- is actually filed, and I

22 think more recently that's -- that's been done when we're in court. If a

23 party wants to file a reply, they generally rise at some point during the

24 proceedings in court and ask the Trial Chamber for permission to file the

25 reply.

Page 49088

1 In this situation, because we think that the -- not only now the

2 Prosecution motion for more time, but there have been other ones filed by

3 other Defence teams as well for more time to cross-examine these

4 Rule 92 ter witnesses of the Coric Defence in March, because this is --

5 could affect the scheduling and the calendar of the various witnesses in

6 March, we consider it to be a fairly urgent matter to get before the

7 Trial Chamber as quickly as possible. And since we were not in court

8 last week, I elected to go ahead and file this motion to reply as -- as

9 it is so that we could at least get it in to the Trial Chamber as soon as

10 possible rather than waiting an additional number of days to ask for

11 permission to reply and then to -- if permission was granted to actually

12 file the reply.

13 So we viewed it as -- as something that hopefully would assist

14 the Trial Chamber and the parties and that we could ultimately perhaps

15 get an earlier decision from the Trial Chamber in respect of the

16 cross-examination times for these Rule 92 ter witnesses. So we simply

17 went ahead and filed the motion to reply with the proposed reply itself,

18 and recognising that's a bit of an irregularity in respect of the

19 Trial Chamber's past practice, but we're nonetheless grateful for the

20 Trial Chamber's consideration on that. And hopefully we can get the

21 calendar from March formalised as quickly as possible, because it's --

22 obviously everyone needs to know who the witnesses are going to be and

23 how much time's going to be available for the various examinations.

24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you very much. It is in

25 the transcript, and we will read very carefully your written reply.

Page 49089

1 As you know, the witness that is coming has protection measures,

2 so I'm going to ask the Registrar to ask to go to private session, and I

3 will ask the Usher to close down the blinds.

4 [Closed session]

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Page 49090

11 Pages 49090-49176 redacted. Closed session.

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