ICTY Weekly Press Briefing - 21st Sep 2005

Please note that this
is not a verbatim transcript of the Press
Briefing. It is merely a summary.

Date: 21.09.2005

Time: 12.15

Registry and Chambers:

Jim Landale, Spokesman for Registry
and Chambers, made the following statement:

Good afternoon,

This Monday, 26 September, the initial
appearance will be held for Marijan Krizic
at 2.30 p.m. in Courtroom III. This will
be followed by the initial appearance
of Josip Jovic at 3.15 p.m. also in Courtroom
III.

Both Krizic and Jovic have been charged
with one count of contempt of the Tribunal
pursuant to Rule 77 of the Tribunal’s
Rules of Procedure and Evidence in the
case of The Prosecutor v. Tihomir
Blaskic.

According to the indictment against
him, Josip
Jovic was the editor-in-chief of
the Croatian daily newspaper Slobodna
Dalmacija between 27 November and
29 December 2000, when he "knowingly
and willfully interfered with the administration
of justice by publishing the identity
of a protected ICTY witness, by publishing
the fact that the witness testified in
closed session of the Tribunal, and by
publishing excerpts of that testimony,
in whole or in part, and by directly
violating the 1 December 2000 court order."

According to the indictment against
Marijan Križic, at all times
relevant to the indictment he was the
editor-in-chief of the Croatian weekly
newspaper Hrvatsko Slovo. The
indictment alleges that between November
2004 and December 2004, Marijan
Križic disclosed “the
identity of a protected witness, the
extracts of closed-session testimony,
and the fact that the protected witness
had testified in non-public proceedings
before the Tribunal".

The trial of Mile Mrksic, Miroslav Radic
and Veselin Sljivancanin is due to commence
on the afternoon of Monday 3 October
2005 in Courtroom I, once the pre-trial
conference has been concluded. The pre-trial
conference will commence at 2.15 p.m.
and we expect that to be followed by
the Prosecution’s opening statement.
On the current schedule, the presentation
of evidence by the Prosecution is due
to commence on Tuesday 11 October, 2005.
We will of course inform you of any changes
to those times and dates.

According to the indictment against
the three men, on about 20 November 1991,
the JNA and Serb paramilitary soldiers
under the command or supervision of Mrksic,
Radic and Sljivancanin, removed about
400 non-Serb individuals from the Vukovar
Hospital and then transported around
300 of them to a farm building in Ovcara,
where they beat them for several hours.
Afterwards, soldiers transported their
non-Serb captives in groups of about
10 to 20 to a site between the Ovcara
farm and Grabovo, where they shot and
otherwise killed at least 198 men and
two women. After the killings, the bodies
of the victims were buried by bulldozer
in a mass grave at the same location.

Mile Mrksic, Miroslav Radic and Veselin
Sljivancanin are charged on the basis
of their individual criminal responsibility
(Article 7(1) of the Statute of the Tribunal
and, also, or alternatively, superior
criminal responsibility (Article 7(3))
with:

two counts of grave breaches of the
1949 Geneva Conventions (willfully
causing great suffering; willful killing),

two counts of violations of the laws
or customs of war (cruel treatment;
murder), and

two counts of crimes against humanity
(inhumane acts; murder).

Further details about the case can be
found on the Tribunal’s website.

The appeals hearing in The Prosecutor
v. Milomir Stakic will be held
on 4 and 5 October, from 9 a.m. to
1.45 p.m. on 4 October and from 9 a.m.
to 5 p.m. on 5 October.

The appeals hearing in The Prosecutor
v. Mladen Naletilic and Vinko Martinovic will
be held on Monday and Tuesday 17 and
18 October in Courtroom II. Proceedings
are due start at 9 a.m. and continue,
with a break for lunch, until 5.45
p.m. on Monday and from 9 a.m. until
5.30 p.m. on Tuesday.

There will be a sentencing hearing in The
Prosecutor v. Miroslav Bralo on
Monday 10 October starting at 9 a.m.
in Courtroom III. That will continue
into the afternoon and is also scheduled
for the following afternoon from 2
to 6 p.m.

You will recall that on 19 July of this
year, as part of an agreement with the
Office of the Prosecutor, Bralo entered
guilty pleas to eight counts of crimes
against humanity, violations of the laws
or customs of war, and grave breaches
of the Geneva conventions for his part
in, among other things, the persecution,
murder, torture and rape of Bosnian Muslim
civilians in central Bosnia in 1993,
including during the attack on the village
of Ahmici. At the hearing on 19 July,
the Trial Chamber accepted that the plea
agreement met the requirements of the
Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure and
Evidence.

The pre-defence conference in the Krajisnik
case will be held next Wednesday, 28
September at 9.30 a.m. in Courtroom II.

I have been informed that the Milosevic
trial will run from Wednesday to Friday
next week.

In addition to the ongoing trials, status
conferences will be held in The Prosecutor
v. Blagojevic et al this Friday 23
September at 2.15 p.m. in Courtroom I;
in The Prosecutor v. Vojislav Seselj on
Monday 26 September also at 2.15 p.m
in Courtroom I; in The Prosecutor
v. Radoslav Brdjanin on Tuesday 27
September at 3 p.m in Courtroom
I; in The Prosecutor v. Cermak and
Markac on Wednesday 28 September
at 11 a.m in Courtroom III; and in The
Prosecutor v. Stanisic and Simatovic on
Thursday 29 September also at 3 p.m.
in Courtroom I.

Office of the Prosecutor:

Florence Hartmann, Spokesperson for
the Office of the Prosecutor, announced
that the Prosecutor would start her visit
to the Balkan region on 29 September
2005 in Belgrade, meeting with President
Vojislav Kostunica and other members
of the Serbian government. On 30 September,
the Prosecutor would then travel to Montenegro
for meetings with President Vujanovic
and then a meeting with Prime Minister
Milo Djukanovic, along with other government
officials of Montenegro. In the afternoon,
she would be in Zagreb meeting with Ivo
Sanader and Croatian government members
and with President Mesic.

Questions

Asked about the Vatican’s
statement that proof was needed as to
where Ante Gotovina was hiding, Hartmann
answered that the question had been answered
in advance by the Prosecutor as she had
explained in her interview with the Daily
Telegraph. Hartmann stated that the Prosecutor
explained that she was asking the Vatican
for help because she did not have the
precise location of the monastery sheltering
Gotovina, otherwise the police of that
country would have been asked to arrest
the fugitive. Not having this information
and the fact that there were various
and recurrent sources on the existence
of a network of support within the monasteries
and among the Franciscans, Hartmann said
that the Prosecutor needed the assistance
of the Vatican, as she had explained
in the interview.

Asked if the Prosecutor had taken
these statements to mean that there would
be no assistance from the Vatican or
that assistance would be given if more
details were provided, Hartmann replied
that the Prosecutor had said already
in the interview that the Vatican did
not feel obliged to cooperate with the
Tribunal. Hartmann said that the Prosecutor
needed the assistance of the Vatican
because she did not know in which monastery
he could be and in order for the competent
authorities to arrest him, it would be
useful to check where he was in the past,
present and where he could be in the
future.

Asked if the Prosecutor’s
office had now considered the Vatican
as a dead end, or whether they did have
information, Hartmann said that the Tribunal
was always asking for the help of everyone
with the knowledge that arresting a fugitive
was a question of will and of cooperation
and coordination of all of those who
could contribute in catching and arresting
a fugitive. Hartmann said that the Tribunal
was asking whoever could help, including
the Vatican, as had been done in the
past with other churches in the cases
of other former fugitives.

Hartmann said that this was also
being asked of international institutions
and that everyone was asked to contribute
to the capture of the remaining seven
fugitives. There was always an excuse
and everyone should put their efforts
together. Hartmann said that there was
no institution that should not be addressed
to take a moral stand towards justice
and international law in order to bring
before justice those indicted for war
crimes, and to contribute in a technical,
operational way in locating these persons
if possible.

Asked where the OTP stood now, Hartmann
said that she would leave it to what
she just said that everyone was asked
to contribute to the process. It was
a problem for every individual on the
planet and everyone was asked to contribute
as far as they wanted, willingly or by
the law. Hartmann said that the Tribunal
was continuing on with its work and planning
on the arrival of all seven fugitives.
She added that the Tribunal was an independent
Tribunal and that the Prosecutor was
just doing her job.

Asked if this had meant the end
of the story with the Vatican, Hartmann
said that it did not mean the end of
the story. The end of the story was when
all the accused were in the custody of
the Tribunal and on the way to that goal
everyone had to cooperate, Hartmann said.

Landale added that the end to the
story would be putting the accused on
trial, giving them a full and fair trial,
and after that giving them an opportunity
to appeal should they want and be permitted
to do so. Landale said that Hartmann
was absolutely right in saying that the
fugitives had to be brought here. The
Tribunal expected anyone who was in a
position to help that process to do so,
and to do so without hesitation or excuse.

Asked where the Prosecutor got her
confidence that Mladic and Karadzic would
be arrested by 5 October 2005, Hartmann
stated that the Prosecutor said precisely
that she received a commitment from the
authorities during her last visit to
Belgrade on 2 June 2005, and that that
they had stated that they were working
hard on the arrest of Mladic.

Hartmann said that there was quite
some pressure from different governments
to have Mladic and Karadzic handed over
by the commemoration of the genocide
in Srebrenica on July 11. Therefore,
six weeks before the commemoration, the
Prosecutor had the commitment of the
officials in Belgrade that they had been
working on the arrests. Yet, they were
not fully sure that they would make the
arrests by 11 July. So, they had said
that arrests would be made at the latest
by 5 October. There was now two more
weeks in which they could deliver, but
it had been 10 years since they should
have been arrested. The Prosecutor stated
in an interview that she was afraid to
stand alone on this call for arrest,
Hartmann said.

Hartmann added that the Tribunal
did not have its own police and that
it had to rely on everyone’s cooperation.
Hartmann said that Mladic was in Serbia
and under the control of the army and
that the Prosecutor had stated this publicly
in her address to the Security Council
in November 2001. The situation had not
changed since then, but the accused were
still at large, she said.

Hartmann said Karadzic was mainly
in Serbia and Montenegro, and that was
the reason the Prosecutor was going again
to the region to work on the arrests.
Ten years was too long, said Hartmann.

Asked whether there was confidence
in Belgrade’s given date of 5 October,
Hartmann said that was not a question
to be put to the Tribunal due to the
fact that it did not have its own police
force. The Tribunal could only be asked
when the Prosecutor signed the indictments
against Karadzic and Mladic and when
they were confirmed by the judge, and
that was in July 1995 and November 1995
for genocide. Hartmann stated that was
10 years ago.

Landale added that it was deeply
shameful to be still discussing the liberty
of Karadzic and Mladic 10 years after
they had been indicted. Landale said
that one thing was clear from the perspective
of the Tribunal, and that was that it
would not consider its work done until
they were brought to The Hague and put
on trial. The Tribunal had received very
clear signals of support from the international
community on this issue and now all the
attention should be focused on those
who could affect an arrest and transfer.
Landale stated that the Tribunal called
again for them to live up to their international
legal obligations to apprehend and to
transfer these two people. It was vital
that it happen and it was not an issue
that was going to disappear, Landale
said.

Asked how the date of 5 October
was selected, Hartmann answered that
there were two reasons. The first reason
was the anniversary date of the fall
of Slobodan Milosevic who was arrested
by the local authorities six months later
and transferred to the Tribunal eight
months after his fall, which was extremely
successful compared to Karadzic and Mladic
who were still at large. The second was
that the government in Serbia felt that
it would have problems with the EU if
it did not deliver before the EU Foreign
Ministers’ Summit by that date.

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