111215ED

Page 26423

1 decision, which, as I said, would be issued today, would address that.

2 Thank you.

3 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.

4 JUDGE HALL: The next matter is the review of documents that have

5 been marked for identification.

6 In the Chamber's own review, it has found 53 such documents, of

7 which 12 are from the Stanisic Defence, 6 from the Zupljanin Defence, and

8 the remainder are all Prosecution documents. And the Chamber invites the

9 parties to review these documents and thereafter file a joint submission

10 with their position on these documents. And we further instruct the

11 parties to process -- to complete this process and report to the Chamber

12 by Friday, the 13th of January, 2012. That's the Friday after the

13 adjournment. And I emphasise that we expect a joint report. If anything

14 flows from that, we would see.

15 The next two items, I would invite Judge Delvoie to address.

16 JUDGE DELVOIE: Thank you.

17 And the next order is about the joint notice on change of status

18 of concern confidential exhibits.

19 On the 11th of November, 2011, the Prosecution and Defence

20 jointly filed a notice of compliance with the oral order of the

21 9th of September whereby the Chamber had directed the parties to review

22 the confidential exhibits in this case for a possible change of status.

23 The parties agreed that 95 exhibits that were admitted under seal

24 in the course of trial can now be made public. The parties further

25 proposed making public the prior testimony of Predrag Radic and

Page 26424

1 Stevan Todorovic, admitted pursuant to Rule 92 quater, since neither

2 witness enjoy any protective measures. Prosecution additionally offered

3 to redact certain portions from the testimony of Predrag Radic that were

4 taken in private session.

5 Having reviewed the exhibits proposed for change of status

6 against other relevant evidence, the Trial Chamber agrees with the

7 parties with respect to all 95 exhibits, including the transcripts of the

8 prior testimony of both witnesses. Additionally, the Chamber directs the

9 Prosecution to redact the portions of the testimony of Predrag Radic that

10 were taken in private session. It is further directed to upload the duly

11 redacted version in e-court and inform the Registry and the Chamber

12 accordingly.

13 The Trial Chamber instructs the Registry to lift the confidential

14 status of the 95 exhibits listed in the Annexes A and B of the notice and

15 mark them as publicly admitted.

16 The fifth matter is that of the numbering of adjudicated facts

17 tendered by the Stanisic Defence of which the Trial Chamber took judicial

18 notice by its decision of 29 June 2011.

19 The Chamber had previously taken judicial notice of adjudicated

20 facts proposed inter alia by the Defence in its decision of 1 April 2010,

21 wherein these facts were enumerated alphabetically from the letter A

22 through to letter S. When taking judicial notice of a further 52 facts

23 tendered by the Stanisic Defence on 29 June 2011, the Chamber did not

24 clarify their enumeration. In order to avoid possible misunderstanding

25 over facts already admitted by their numerical reference, the

Page 26425

1 Trial Chamber reassigns alphabetical enumeration to the 52 facts admitted

2 by its decision of 29 June 2011.

3 Accordingly, fact number 1 in the 29 June decision will be

4 referred to as T; fact number 2 as U; fact number 9 as V; and so on, till

5 fact number 14, which will be referred to as fact Z. Thereafter,

6 fact number 15 will be AA; 16 will be AB; 20 will be AC; and so on.

7 From fact number 56 will commence the next set, to be referred to

8 as BA; 57 as BB; and so on, till fact number 83, which will be referred

9 to as adjudicated fact BL.

10 Paragraph 390 from the Simic trial judgement admitted in lieu of

11 proposed fact 19 will be BM. Paragraph 508 from the same judgement in

12 lieu of proposed fact 26 will be BN. And, finally, paragraph 86 from the

13 Stakic trial judgement admitted in lieu of proposed fact 82 will be

14 referred to as BO.

15 We hope that this is clear. And if not, please contact the

16 Chamber through its legal support staff for further clarification.

17 Thank you.

18 JUDGE HALL: Thank you, Judge Harhoff -- Judge Delvoie. I'm

19 sorry.

20 We move next to the matter of scheduling for early in the new

21 year.

22 We remind the parties that we are currently scheduled to sit from

23 the 10th to 20th of January during which time, as I indicated earlier, we

24 expect to hear the two rebuttal witnesses. We are currently seized of

25 the Prosecution's third and fourth motions to present evidence in

Page 26426

1 rebuttal, decisions on which will obviously impact further scheduling.

2 Similarly, the Trial Chamber is monitoring the developments in the case

3 of Rasic and the case of Haradinaj which may also affect our sittings.

4 And depending on the outcome of all of these matters, we will, of course,

5 provide further instructions as soon as we are able to.

6 The next item is the matter of Chamber witnesses. And the

7 Chamber notes that the Prosecution has raised this matter, that is why it

8 was included in the agenda. However, to state the obvious, as the

9 Chamber has not yet heard all the evidence in this case, it is reluctant

10 at this point to go into any detail on the subject. And when a decision

11 is taken on any Chamber witnesses, it will duly and promptly communicate

12 it to the parties with all the necessary procedural instructions.

13 I invite Judge Harhoff to deal with item 8.

14 JUDGE HARHOFF: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President.

15 The next matter is the interesting matter of the projected time

16 for filing of final trial briefs.

17 With regard to this question as to how long after the conclusion

18 of all the evidence will parties have to file their final briefs, the

19 Chamber stresses that work on the final briefs should be done on a

20 continuous basis. Considering that following the summer recess we

21 haven't been sitting in this case every week and that this practice will

22 continue for some time into the new year, the Chamber considers that the

23 parties will have had some time already to work on their final trial

24 briefs. It will therefore expect the parties to be prepared to file

25 their respective final trial briefs not too long after the conclusion of

Page 26427

1 all the evidence. The exact time will, of course, be determined in due

2 course.

3 JUDGE HALL: Thank you, Judge Harhoff.

4 Mr. Zecevic, the next three items listed, as 9, 10, and 11, were

5 all suggested by you, so we would invite you to address these matters.

6 MR. ZECEVIC: Thank you very much, Mr. President, Your Honours.

7 The first matter, Your Honours, is the video exhibits. I'm happy

8 to inform the Trial Chamber that we have reached an agreement between the

9 parties and the Registry, and the Registry disclosed to us the copies of

10 the video exhibits already exhibited in this case. So far we have been

11 able to find out that four of these exhibits, video exhibits, are not

12 properly working and we are addressing this matter. Also, one of the

13 matters that we raised, that the video does not correspond to the

14 transcript of the exhibit, has been resolved in the meantime. And I

15 propose that we inform the Trial Chamber by 13th of January or the

16 10th of January about the outcome of that situation. And in case we

17 would need any assistance of the Trial Chamber, we can -- we can address

18 it after we -- after the break, Your Honours.

19 That's --

20 JUDGE HALL: Thank you.

21 MR. ZECEVIC: That's the first matter.

22 The second matter, Your Honours, or the matter number 10 on the

23 agenda, is update on the CHS with Defence Excel spreadsheet with

24 hyperlinks to narrative.

25 Following Honourable Judge Delvoie's suggestion from last

Page 26428

1 Thursday, we explored the possibility and we will -- Your Honours, at

2 this point I'm not hundred per cent sure how it will look like, but it

3 will be -- there is going to be a hyperlink. But in any case,

4 Your Honours, please be assured that the Defence of Stanisic will do its

5 utmost to make it as easy, accessible for the review of your -- the

6 Judges, as possible. And therefore, at this point I can say only that,

7 that it will be hyperlinked to the narrative document, and we will try to

8 make it as clear and as accessible as possible.

9 Thank you very much.

10 JUDGE HALL: Thank you.

11 MR. ZECEVIC: The third thing, Your Honours, is a matter

12 concerning the document which is a Defence document, 65 ter 820D1.

13 Your Honours, this document was offered in our bar table motion.

14 And in Your Honours' decision, paragraph 24 of the decision, the -- and I

15 will quote:

16 "Accordingly, the Trial Chamber finds that the document as

17 tendered by the Defence lacks sufficient reliability for admission into

18 evidence. In this regard, the Trial Chamber considers that given the

19 relevance and the potential probative value it will permit the Defence to

20 tender the original or official archived version of this record of

21 remarks and proposals of the HDZ in order to satisfy the reliability

22 requirement for admission into evidence."

23 Based on the leave that -- that the -- that the Trial Chamber

24 gave us, Your Honours, we approached the Republic of Croatia and asked

25 them to provide us with the original of the document or the archived

Page 26429

1 version of the document, as suggested by Your Honours in the decision.

2 What happened is that the Republic of Croatia, and we are grateful for

3 that, responded and provided us with four -- four articles from

4 newspapers. One is from Politika Belgrade Daily; two are from

5 Bosnia-Herzegovina; and one is from Croatia, all dated between the

6 22nd February and 29th of February, 1992, addressing this concrete

7 matter, which is the position of HDZ concerning the Cutileiro Plan.

8 Now, I spoke my friend Mr. Hannis about this. I provided the

9 copies of the documentation which was provided to us by Croatia, the

10 translation of the documents, and I asked Mr. Hannis if he will

11 withdraw -- withdrew his objection, and he said no. So the objection is

12 still there. Your Honours, there -- well, I'm afraid there isn't much

13 more than we can do at this point, I mean, because there is no other way

14 we can -- we can get the archived version or the original. We asked the

15 Republic of Croatia, and this is what we received, so --

16 Therefore, we are in your hands, Your Honours, on this matter.

17 And I believe that is the last item that we -- that we -- that we

18 suggested. I still have some additional --

19 JUDGE HALL: [Microphone not activated] ... Mr. Hannis seemed to

20 make a comment on this last matter.

21 MR. ZECEVIC: Oh, sorry.

22 JUDGE HALL: Is there something that you wished to add,

23 Mr. Hannis?

24 MR. HANNIS: Yes, Your Honour. I did continue with my objection.

25 Your order was to tender the original or official archived version of

Page 26430

1 this record of the remarks of the HDZ.

2 My objection to the original exhibit was that it was an excerpt

3 from a book by Mr. Tudjman, and it's cited as its authority some

4 newspaper or magazine source "Vjesnik," V-j-e-s-n-i-k, on the

5 26th of February. What Mr. Zecevic is adding now is three other

6 newspaper articles from three different newspapers. But it's not an

7 official source. And as I read the newspaper articles, it appears that

8 HDZ's proposal was submitted to the negotiators in Lisbon. It must exist

9 somewhere in an official capacity. Maybe the inquiry needs to be

10 directed to that body, rather than to Croatia. But this is no better

11 than what we had before. It's three other newspaper articles about the

12 event. And I don't think it meets the reliability requirement that you

13 were seeking to be met when you ordered that it be an original or

14 official archived version of the record, not a media account about it.

15 [Trial Chamber confers]

16 JUDGE HALL: The Chamber would rise and return in ten minutes.

17 --- Break taken at 10.11 a.m.

18 --- On resuming at 10.20 a.m.

19 JUDGE HALL: With respect to the last matter raised by

20 Mr. Zecevic and to which Mr. Hannis responded, it seems to us, at this

21 point, that Mr. Zecevic may, if he wishes, file a motion inviting the

22 Chamber to look at what material he has been able -- his inquiries have

23 been able to produce so far, and we would take it from there. But the --

24 as presently advised, the Chamber sees no reason why it should revise

25 what it has already said on this. But we are appreciative of the

Page 26431

1 difficulties which Mr. Zecevic has apparently faced and we'd see whether,

2 as I said, see where we go.

3 Thank you.

4 You had another matter to raise, Mr. Zecevic.

5 MR. ZECEVIC: Thank you, Your Honours, very much.

6 Your Honours, the last item on the agenda are any other matters,

7 business, and there are two things I would like to raise with

8 Your Honours. I informed the Legal Officers and the Registry and our

9 friends from the Office of the Prosecutor about that before we started.

10 I'm sorry we didn't -- it just came up late last night.

11 The first matter, Your Honours, is that we noticed when reviewing

12 the exhibits that the law library document contains -- please bear with

13 me for a second.

14 Thank you, I'm sorry.

15 Law library contains eight documents where no translation has

16 been uploaded in e-court. I have the list of the documents. And if the

17 Trial Chamber requires me, I can read them on the record, or perhaps we

18 can --

19 JUDGE HALL: I don't think that would be necessary, Mr. Zecevic.

20 MR. ZECEVIC: Yeah. I think we could communicate that by mail.

21 And what I propose - I informed Mr. Hannis, and we are already

22 working on that, because, as Your Honours will remember, it was a joint

23 motion between the Defence and the Office of the Prosecutor - and our

24 proposal is that we re-address and inform the Trial Chamber about the

25 outcome on the 10th or, let's say, by the 13th of January next year about

Page 26434

1 the 1st of April, 2011. And the Chamber instructs the Registrar to

2 recirculate the decision as public. Thank you.

3 MR. ZECEVIC: Thank you, Your Honours.

4 JUDGE HALL: Are there any other matters that counsel wish to

5 raise?

6 MR. HANNIS: Yes, if I may, Your Honour. I wanted to go back and

7 ask a couple of questions about some of the matters you already

8 addressed, and I did have one additional matter. The additional matter I

9 had was in reviewing our records to see if there were any outstanding

10 motions that had not been ruled on as far as we could determine. We had

11 filed a second supplemental bar table motion back on the

12 20th of September, 2011. This related to certain ethnic maps. I thought

13 Mr. Zecevic was going to raise this. But as far as I know, that's still

14 outstanding, and we just wanted to inquire about that.

15 JUDGE HALL: It will not long be outstanding, Mr. Hannis.

16 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.

17 Then with regard to Chamber witnesses. I understand that you

18 haven't made a decision on that yet. I did want to request that the

19 Court, if you decide to call one or more Chamber witnesses, we would ask

20 that you bear a couple of things in mind that relate to scheduling and

21 also just as to procedure with such witnesses. If you do, I know from

22 past experience in one trial where it happened, it evolved that it was a

23 good policy that once you made that announcement that you were going to

24 call witnesses, that the parties be advised that they should have no

25 contact with such witnesses and that the witnesses themselves should be

Page 26435

1 advised that they shouldn't have any contact with either party or

2 representatives of the party just to ensure the integrity of what

3 evidence they might bring when they come to testify for you.

4 Also, then we would have questions about the order of evidence,

5 whether, in the one example I know of, the Trial Chamber asked all the

6 questions then the Prosecution was permitted to cross-examine and then

7 the Defence were permitted to cross-examine. That seemed to be a logical

8 order. But that's something we'd ask you to think about --

9 JUDGE HALL: Well, as I said, the procedural incidents of the

10 Chamber witnesses, should we decide to call them, we would, of course,

11 inform the parties as to how we deal with those issues. We are very much

12 alive to those concerns, Mr. Hannis.

13 MR. HANNIS: Thank you, Your Honour. And in terms of timing,

14 that parties are given sufficient notice prior to those witnesses coming

15 so that we can make adequate preparations to do an efficient job of our

16 cross-examination and finding any documents that we think might ought to

17 be shown to that person.

18 And also, that the timing of that would relate to the timing for

19 the filing of the final brief. I understand the current order is "not

20 too long," which is sufficiently ambiguous to keep us all happy, I think,

21 at this point. But I know in the other case where we had that experience

22 with Trial Chamber witnesses being called, because of difficulties in the

23 reluctance of a particular witness to come, and getting the local state

24 to assist in making him appear, it resulted that we had a final brief

25 deadline that pushed right up to, I think, the week that that last

Page 26436

1 witness testified. In the end, we did get an extension for final briefs

2 so we could incorporate his evidence, which was substantial and very

3 difficult to incorporate at that late date. So we would ask you to keep

4 that in mind in terms of scheduling too, that there be a sufficient time

5 between the last bit of evidence, whoever that comes from, and the

6 final --

7 JUDGE HALL: As you say that, Mr. Hannis, I'm reflecting that

8 we're in week -- in month 28 of what promised to be an 18-month case. So

9 we will try to adhere to that 18-month time-frame in terms of what we do

10 as regards Chamber witnesses.

11 MR. HANNIS: All right. Thank you, Your Honour. I think ... oh,

12 there was one other thing I think I was requested to raise by the

13 Registry.

14 In terms of the CHS, the Prosecution has been filing some

15 supplemental information as we get additional documents related to the

16 POD. And in the past we have filed CDs containing the information about

17 those new additional death certificates, et cetera. I understand that

18 causes a problem in the Registry in terms of, sort of, complicating

19 unnecessary the filing and the records.

20 So I would like to ask if we can withdraw our last CD that we

21 filed. And in the future, if we have supplements, we will file them not

22 in the form of a CD.

23 I hope that addresses the Registry Officer's concerns.

24 [Trial Chamber and Registrar confer]

25 JUDGE HALL: Thank you, Madam Registrar.

Page 26437

1 We're advised that the final exhibit will be on a CD. But

2 between now and then, things would -- I don't know how to express it, but

3 there are steps between now and then. Let me put it that way.

4 MR. HANNIS: I think I understand, and we will co-ordinate with

5 the Registry on that.

6 The last thing, Your Honour, was concerning the MFI exhibits. I

7 think we have now in date of the 13th of January by which to inform you

8 of the ones that we're able to agree upon. But I anticipate there may

9 not -- there may be some that we're not able to reach agreement upon.

10 And at that time or shortly thereafter if we have some that we feel,

11 because of what has come in in the last months since the previous ruling

12 on bar table motions, if we have an argument to make why something that

13 is still MFI might now rise to the level of being admitted as an exhibit,

14 we would do so after we determined whether or not we're able to reach

15 agreement. If that's agreeable.

16 JUDGE HALL: That I indicated earlier, that we are requesting or

17 directing counsel to file a joint report. The Chamber is deliberately

18 not anticipating what the fruit of your work will be. We'll see where we

19 are when we see the report.

20 MR. HANNIS: Thank you.

21 MR. ZECEVIC: I'm sorry, Your Honours, may I?

22 JUDGE HALL: [Microphone not activated] Yes.

23 MR. ZECEVIC: Just one matter, because according to your -- to

24 Your Honours' order or leave for us to file our response on the CHS as a

25 separate submission, we said that we will file that after we received the

Page 26438

1 final version of the -- of the document from the Office of the

2 Prosecutor. And if I correctly remember, the deadline was the

3 10th of January for the Prosecution to file that final CD with all the --

4 all the additional materials that they have gathered so far.

5 So I would just -- I would just like to verify that, that the

6 10th of January is the deadline for the Office of the Prosecution to file

7 that last CD, and then we will be able to -- to provide our response.

8 [Trial Chamber and Legal Officer confer]

9 JUDGE HALL: Thank you, Mr. Zecevic.

10 As of today, the order extant gives -- sets the deadline as the

11 10th of January. We don't know what tomorrow will bring.

12 MR. ZECEVIC: Thank you, Your Honours. I understand.

13 JUDGE HALL: Mr. Krgovic, do you have any matters to raise?

14 MR. KRGOVIC: Yes, Your Honour, I just like to inform

15 Trial Chamber that Zupljanin Defence will not file the bar table motion.

16 JUDGE HALL: Thank you.

17 Well, we thank counsel for their assistance in terms of

18 clarifying all of these matters, which, as I said, the purpose of this

19 session is to smooth the way for the final phase of this trial.

20 And we will reconvene on the 10th of January. And I take the

21 opportunity to wish all the parties and, indeed, everyone present,

22 interpreters, the security staff, the accused, and everyone else, the

23 safe break and that you enjoy the season, however you choose to do so,

24 and that we -- more importantly, or most importantly, that we return in

25 January rejuvenated, refreshed, and battle-ready to complete this

Page 26439

1 exercise.

2 We adjourn.

3 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 10.38 a.m.,

4 to be reconvened on Tuesday, the 10th day

5 of January, 2012, at 9.00 a.m.