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ICTY Press Briefing - 15 July 2015

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Date: 15.07.2015
Time: 12:30 p.m.

Registry and Chambers

Nenad Golčevski, Acting Spokesperson for Registry and Chambers, made the following statement:

Good afternoon,

Starting with the latest news from the courtrooms, in the case of Ratko Mladić, last week the Prosecution concluded the reopening of its case with the completion of the testimony of demographer Ewa Tabeau. In total, the Prosecution called 8 witnesses to testify about the evidence from the newly discovered Tomašica mass grave, near Prijedor. This week, the Defence resumed its case with the video-link testimony of former JNA and Republika Srpska Army officer Boško Kelečević. He is the 169th Defence witness in court so far. The trial will be in recess from tomorrow, 16 July, till 10 August.

In the case of Goran Hadžić, who is on provisional release due to ill-health, the Chamber is currently seized of two pending motions, filed by each party in mid-June. The Defence requested a termination or stay of the proceedings, while the Prosecution requested the trial to proceed. The Chamber will render its decision in due course.

Turning to the activities of the Appeals Chambers of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, on 7 July 2015, the MICT Appeals Chamber dismissed a motion by Milan Lukić to review his judgement, Judge Antonetti dissenting. Lukić claimed that his conviction should be reviewed in light of new evidence, inter alia, five witness statements which came to his attention "after his appeal was concluded". The Appeals Chamber found that Lukić failed to provide any new facts meriting review.

A day later a similar motion to review the judgement, filed by Sreten Lukić, from the Šainović et al. case was dismissed by the MICT Appeals Chamber. In the motion, Lukić claimed that his conviction and sentence should be reviewed due to "new facts, evidence and jurisprudence". His grounds for review were the findings from the Đorđević judgement, evidence related to a meeting in Belgrade from 1999 and his health. The Chamber found that the arguments did not constitute the “new facts” that would be required for the purposes of review under Rule 146 of the MICT Rules.

Finally, on 11 July ICTY and Mechanism President Theodor Meron and ICTY Prosecutor Serge Brammerz represented the Tribunal at a Srebrenica Genocide 20th Anniversary Commemoration held at the Potočari memorial. The President and the Prosecutor delivered remarks at the commemoration and paid their respects to the victims and their families.

Questions:

No questions were asked.