Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Page 19478

1 Tuesday, 15 July 2003

2 [Open session]

3 --- Upon commencing at 9.05 a.m.

4 [The accused entered court]

5 JUDGE AGIUS: Could you call the case, please, Madam Registrar?

6 THE REGISTRAR: Yes, Your Honour. Good morning, Your Honours.

7 This is case number IT-99-36-T, the Prosecutor versus Radoslav Brdjanin.

8 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Brdjanin, good morning to you. Can you follow

9 in a language that you can understand?

10 THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honours. Yes, I

11 can.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: Sit down. Appearances for the Prosecution.

13 MS. KORNER: Good morning, Your Honours. It's Joanna Korner

14 assisted by Denise Gustin case manager.

15 JUDGE AGIUS: Thank you and good morning to you. Appearances for

16 Radoslav Brdjanin?

17 MR. ACKERMAN: Good morning, Your Honours, I'm John Ackerman with

18 Aleksandar Vujic.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you and good morning to you both. Any

20 preliminaries before we bring the witness in.

21 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, only to as it were forewarn,

22 Your Honour, of this: First of all, (Redacted)--

23 JUDGE AGIUS: We are in open session.

24 MS. KORNER: Yes, can we redact that, please? The witness brought

25 with him some extra documents, obviously in his own language. We supplied

Page 19479

1 them yesterday evening to Mr. Ackerman. There is a sort of summary of

2 them. I don't think for the moment that I have any intention of using

3 them but there is a further aspect and that is this: That in addition to

4 that, Your Honour may recall sometime ago I told you that we had been

5 seeking through the auspices of the Republika Srpska documents from

6 various municipalities without any success. So about ten days ago, some

7 investigators actually went and knocked on the door of the Teslic

8 municipality and asked for documents. They were provided but only arrived

9 here yesterday. We are doing -- at the moment we are in the process of

10 translating some of them because they are relevant. Part has been

11 translated, late last night and a further part will be completed by

12 lunchtime today. Mr. Ackerman has had the original documents but not the

13 translations that are in the process of doing. I hope he may have had

14 that part but I'm not sure. So, Your Honour, I'm afraid that's the

15 situation at the moment. Just to give you a forewarning.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: Mr. Ackerman?

17 MR. ACKERMAN: Your Honour, I have no idea what's in the envelope

18 which was in my box this morning. I got a call around 6.00 last night

19 saying that they had put these materials in my locker here at the

20 Tribunal. I picked them up this morning, just glanced at them, I don't

21 know what it is. There seems to be a pattern that's developed that's

22 concerning me. All of a sudden -- this didn't happen for the whole trial

23 until the last month. All of a sudden witnesses are bringing documents

24 that the Prosecution claims to have not ever seen before. And it creates

25 havoc in terms of trying to figure out what it is they say.

Page 19480

1 JUDGE AGIUS: How many witnesses have we had bringing in new

2 documents that --

3 MR. ACKERMAN: I would say in the last month, six. Maybe more.

4 And it didn't happen earlier in the trial, and I don't know whether -- I'm

5 not going to make any accusations at all.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: Let's not make a causus belli out of it. We will

7 take the documents as -- and if the need to make use of them arises and

8 we'll see. I mean -- at least you managed to have these documents. We

9 haven't seen them, or to my knowledge, I don't think we have been given

10 these documents.

11 MR. ACKERMAN: It wouldn't do any good for you to see them.

12 JUDGE AGIUS: Of course not.

13 MS. KORNER: Just a moment, if I may, first of all I don't

14 understand why Mr. Ackerman only picked them up this morning because he

15 was telephoned yesterday to say that these documents would be in his

16 locker by 6.00 and that they were relevant to today's witness. There

17 is -- in fact, I'm told by Ms. Gustin such as we have got translated is in

18 this envelope which Mr. Ackerman decided only to pick up this morning.

19 Your Honours won't have it -- I'm sorry, oh, right -- I'm sorry the B/C/S

20 is this not the translation that was finished late last night but we will

21 hand that over at the break. I'm sorry. The witness arrived with these

22 documents which we knew nothing about at all and he simply said that.

23 JUDGE AGIUS: That happens.

24 MS. KORNER: Have a look at them.

25 JUDGE AGIUS: That happens. When it happens one has to use good

Page 19481

1 judgement. That's all. I mean --

2 MS. KORNER: Your Honour, as I say, can I put it this way?

3 Mr. Ackerman will in any event have the whole of Thursday, if necessary,

4 to look at the new documents, plus this afternoon, plus tomorrow

5 afternoon.

6 JUDGE AGIUS: All right. We'll see any way. Anything else?

7 MR. ACKERMAN: That may very well be sufficient, Your Honour, but

8 what I was told around 6.00 last night was that there were documents in my

9 locker that were all in B/C/S and that I could pick them up if I wanted

10 to. It was of no value to me to pick them up since I can't read them

11 anyhow and I don't -- I have not looked. There may be a translation in

12 there but I was not -- I was told the translations were being done and

13 would be finished today.

14 MS. KORNER: That's correct, I corrected myself. I thought it had

15 been put in but it hasn't and it will be furnished at the first break.

16 JUDGE AGIUS: I thank you both. Anything else before we bring the

17 witness in?

18 MS. KORNER: I think it is closed session, Your Honour.

19 JUDGE AGIUS: It is. I don't know what the procedure is in this

20 courtroom, so we just declare ourselves to go into closed session and we

21 make sure that no members of the public are admitted in the gallery. Yes,

22 but a policeman is all right. The important thing is that we don't get

23 members of the public.

24 [Closed session]

25 (Redacted)

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4 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at

5 1.47 p.m., to be reconvened on Wednesday,

6 the 16th day of July, 2003, at 9.00 a.m.

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