101110ED

Page 17170

1 Wednesday, 10 November 2010

2 [Open session]

3 [The accused entered court]

4 --- Upon commencing at 9.04 a.m.

5 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours. Good morning to

6 everyone in and around the courtroom.

7 This is case IT-08-91-T, the Prosecutor versus Mico Stanisic and

8 Stojan Zupljanin.

9 Thank you, Your Honours.

10 JUDGE HALL: Thank you, Mr. Registrar.

11 Good morning to everyone. May we have the appearances, please.

12 MS. KORNER: Good morning, Your Honours. Joanna Korner and

13 Crispian Smith for the Prosecution.

14 MR. ZECEVIC: Good morning, Your Honours. Slobodan Zecevic and

15 Ms. Merinda Stewart, appearing for Stanisic Defence this morning.

16 MR. KRGOVIC: Good morning, Your Honours. Dragan Krgovic and

17 Aleksandar Aleksic, appearing for Zupljanin Defence.

18 JUDGE HALL: Thank you.

19 This morning's witness is in closed session, but before we do

20 that, I understand there are some preliminary matters.

21 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, there are a number of administrative

22 matters. Perhaps can I deal with one that I understand was raised

23 yesterday, and I don't think either side is clear why we have to raise it

24 formally but we are told we do, and that is that the sitting on the 22nd

25 of November, which will be a videolink, should be in the afternoon, not

Page 17171

1 the morning. We got an e-mail about that. I thought Your Honours had

2 dealt with that yesterday, but apparently not.

3 Anyhow, can we formally make that application. It's a joint

4 application.

5 JUDGE HALL: Yes. So ordered.

6 MS. KORNER: Thank you very much.

7 Your Honours, the next matter deals with an exhibit that was

8 tendered by the Defence when Witness ST-197 gave evidence, and was marked

9 for identification on the 19th of October, at page 16225 of the

10 transcript, 2D116.

11 Your Honours may recall that this was a map purporting to show

12 various dispositions of what was described as HVO and -- the ABiH army or

13 the Green Berets, I can't remember, in Kotor Varos, at a particular time

14 in 1992. Two maps were shown to the witness. Only one was sought to be

15 exhibited, marked over -- marked for identification, sorry. And

16 Your Honours may recall that throughout I was asking Mr. Krgovic whether

17 this was a copy of an original map, where it came from, and what it was

18 based. And at page 16224, 1, I said, Is this map a copy produced by

19 Mr. Dragan Mihajlovic in Banja Luka, which is to say the technical

20 production from other documentation or is it a map that was produced at

21 the time in 1992, because that makes a difference.

22 And Mr. Krgovic said, Your Honours, what I learned when I

23 obtained the map or I asked to be given the state of affairs as it was in

24 1992 since I wasn't able to obtain an original from that time I obtained

25 a copy on the Secretariat for Cooperation with ICTY in Banja Luka, I add

Page 17172

1 in parenthesis, and I was told that this was copy of a map dating back to

2 the period.

3 I then asked to see the original and asked Mr. Krgovic to obtain

4 them and he said it would take a couple of months. Well, Your Honours,

5 we decided that we'd try and shorten matters, so an investigator was sent

6 to this institution on the 4th of November, Mr. Koehler, and he spoke to

7 the director of the institution. He was provided with the maps,

8 regrettably, and I think the reason is I gave my own copy to the witness.

9 Not the particular one that was identified but there were a series of

10 five of them and one of them was put to the witness. And the answer we

11 got as to how these maps are produced is that they were produced by an

12 analytical researcher who was working on a project to publish a book on

13 Kotor Varos. It was not actually finished. The maps were based on

14 research done by this gentleman, Mr. Mirko Markovic. He did not possess

15 original maps from the army but the overlays that were put onto what was

16 an ordinary map of Kotor Varos were put on in 2005. They were produced

17 before a book had been published, which was referred to in evidence.

18 They don't have original maps. They did not ask for access to army maps.

19 And they have never been checked, they have never been, as he put it,

20 verified. They need to be updated, they are drafts, and the dates and

21 the entries on the maps are unverified.

22 Your Honour, in those circumstances, I would ask that any

23 suggestion that in the present state of affairs - in other words, they've

24 nothing to do with 1992, we don't know the information on which they're

25 based, we haven't got a statement from the person who drew them - that

Page 17173

1 they have no status at all even to be marked for identification, that

2 map.

3 So, therefore, I'm asking simply that the marking be removed.

4 JUDGE HALL: Mr. Krgovic.

5 MR. KRGOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, when I was tendering

6 these maps, I was convinced that they were maps showing the positions of

7 the Muslim and Croatian forces in the -- that period. That is, 1992.

8 After the testimony of the witness mentioned by Ms. Korner, I also sent

9 my investigator out, but not to the director of the centre but to the man

10 who made the maps. My information differs significantly from that

11 information which the OTP's investigator has; namely, that these maps

12 faithfully reflect the situation from 1992.

13 It is my intention to call the author of these maps when I start

14 leading evidence. But I'm not going to use this map before I start --

15 before the Defence case, nor will I request that the MFI mark be removed.

16 I believe nothing would be gained by doing so. I'm not going to use this

17 map in the examination of witnesses before the beginning of the Defence

18 case.

19 JUDGE HALL: Ms. Korner, it seems to me that the -- Mr. Krgovic's

20 assertion that he expects to be in a position to raise the level of

21 reliability, to put it that way, of these so-called maps in his -- at the

22 time his case is opened, and that he doesn't intend to do anything

23 further with them in the interim, would suggest that the Chamber need

24 take no action on your application at this time. In other words, the

25 present position could remain, and I think Mr. Krgovic accepts that he --

Page 17174

1 if is he not in a position to call a witness who can authenticate these

2 maps, then, for the reasons that you have set out, then they must fall

3 away.

4 Isn't that where we are?

5 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, the fact remains that, at present,

6 something has been marked for identification exhibit which has absolutely

7 no basis in law or fact for being so marked.

8 And one of the worrying things - and I have raised this from time

9 to time during the course of this case - is it is incumbent upon counsel,

10 before they try and put in a document through a witness, to check the

11 provenance of that document. And Mr. Krgovic clearly didn't. And our

12 concern is that it -- it will disappear into the great morass of matters

13 which never do get resolved.

14 I hear what Mr. Krgovic says. It is presently his intention to

15 call somebody to deal with that. That may or may not happen. But the

16 upshot is that we have got marked for identification a document which has

17 no basis for being so marked.

18 [Trial Chamber confers]

19 MR. KRGOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, if I may say ...

20 JUDGE HARHOFF: [Microphone not activated] hold on.

21 [Trial Chamber confers]

22 JUDGE HARHOFF: Mr. Krgovic, the Chamber is just wondering what

23 exactly turns on this map. Is it something that is of any major

24 importance to your case?

25 MR. KRGOVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honours, this map shows the

Page 17175

1 positions of the Muslim and Croatian forces just before the start of the

2 conflict in Kotor Varos.

3 When I received the map, the information I got was that it

4 reflects the state of affairs as it was in 1992. After the objection of

5 Ms. Korner, I didn't give up and, although the witness who was giving

6 testimony could not confirm the details of that map, I decided not to

7 show the other maps, and this one was marked for identification because

8 the witness was unable to confirm the details.

9 At any rate, though, I, just like Ms. Korner, sent out an

10 investigator to the grounds to check matters once more, and my

11 information differs greatly from that which Ms. Korner got. I

12 verified -- I didn't verify with a man who has second-hand information

13 but directly with the author. But as I said, I do not intend to use it,

14 and if I'm unable to verify the credibility of the map, I will withdraw

15 my application to have the map marked for identification. I know how to

16 act in such a case.

17 But this is of no extreme importance for the Defence case, to

18 return to your original question.

19 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you, Mr. Krgovic. It was exactly to show a

20 way out of this conundrum.

21 In any case, Ms. Korner, for the moment, I think status of a

22 document as being marked for identification means exactly that, that it

23 is somewhere in the middle. It's not in evidence, and if it hasn't been

24 de-MFIed, to use this fantastic new verb, by the end of the trial, it

25 falls away.

Page 17176

1 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, we've actually been -- we've got a

2 three-stage process: One, it doesn't even get marked; two, it gets

3 marked for identification; and three, it gets exhibited. My submission

4 was, but I'm not going to spend any more time on it, that it has

5 absolutely no status whatsoever as any kind of document that should -- it

6 should never have been put, effectively, without Mr. Krgovic having

7 assured himself as to what it was and to be able to explain, when asked,

8 what it was.

9 However, I'm not going to pursue the matter any further. I've

10 made the point.

11 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you. We have your comments on the record

12 and I think we will take no further action on this issue at this moment.

13 MS. KORNER: Your Honours, a third matter affects purely the

14 Prosecution, and it's the second or third time I'm returning to this. I

15 hope Your Honours have now got a copy of our calculations as supplied to

16 Ms. Featherstone. We are perfectly prepared to admit that there are

17 greater minds than ours that have been working on this, but from our

18 workings out, we don't need to apply for any further time; that witnesses

19 who remain who come under the old timing, as it were, we still have time

20 to call them within the time that's been added. If we're wrong, then all

21 we ask is whoever has done this study tells us how many hours we're short

22 so that we can make the application for the extra hours.

23 JUDGE DELVOIE: That's how we understand it as well, Ms. Korner.

24 We're working on it.

25 MS. KORNER: All right. Thank you very much. Your Honours, just