Tribunal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

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 1                           Friday, 11 May 2012

 2                           [Status Conference]

 3                           [Open session]

 4                           [The appellant entered court]

 5                           --- Upon commencing at 9.30 a.m.

 6             JUDGE AGIUS:  Good morning, everybody.

 7             Madam Registrar, could you kindly call the case, please.

 8             THE REGISTRAR:  Good morning, Your Honour.  This is case number

 9     IT-05-87/1-A, the Prosecutor versus Vlastimir Djordjevic.

10             JUDGE AGIUS:  Thank you.  Now why is this not working?  I can't

11     hear anything.  Let me see if it's the volume.  All right.  Okay.  Thank

12     you.

13             Appearances.  Let's start with the Prosecution first.

14             MR. WOOD:  Yes, good morning, Your Honour.  Kyle Wood and

15     Christine Dahl for the Prosecution, along with our case manager,

16     Colin Nawrot.

17             JUDGE AGIUS:  Thank you, and welcome to this Status Conference.

18             Defence counsel.

19             MR. DJURDJIC: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honour.

20     Veljko Djurdjic as Defence counsel.

21             JUDGE AGIUS:  Thank you.  And good morning to you and welcome to

22     this Status Conference.  Before we proceed any further, I would like to

23     make sure that everyone can follow the proceedings in a language they

24     understand.  And of course in particular, I refer myself to you,

25     Mr. Djordjevic.  Are you able to follow the proceedings in a language


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 1     that you understand?

 2             THE APPELLANT: [Interpretation] I can.

 3             JUDGE AGIUS:  Thank you.

 4             So this Status Conference is called in accordance with

 5     Rule 65 bis of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence of this Tribunal.  As

 6     you know, Rule 65 bis (B) requires a Status Conference to be convened

 7     every 120 days after the filing of a notice of appeal, and thereafter

 8     within 120 days after the last Status Conference.  The purpose is to

 9     allow any person in custody pending appeal the opportunity to raise

10     issues in relation thereto, including the mental and physical condition

11     of that person.

12             In the present appeal, the parties filed the notices of appeal on

13     24th May 2011, and the first Status Conference was held on the

14     30th of May of last year.  The second and third Status Conferences were

15     held on 21st September 2011 and 16th January 2012 respectively.  Today's

16     Status Conference being the fourth in this case was scheduled by an order

17     issued by me on 29th March 2012.

18             The first topic I'm going to deal with is the detention

19     conditions and health of appellant Djordjevic.

20             Mr. Djordjevic, if you have any concerns in relation to the

21     conditions of your detention or your state of health, I would invite you

22     to raise them now; and if you prefer, this discussion can proceed in

23     private session.

24             THE APPELLANT: [Interpretation] Everything is fine, Your Honour.

25     I have no concerns at all.


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 1             JUDGE AGIUS:  Okay.  I thank you, Mr. Djordjevic.

 2             Yes, I will proceed with giving an account, a short account, of

 3     the recent procedural history in this case.  And I know that this is

 4     information that you are aware of, but one of the purposes of the

 5     Status Conference is also to make public the recent developments in this

 6     case.

 7             Before everything else, then, I would say that on the

 8     11th March 2011, the parties were granted an extension of time of 60 days

 9     to file their notices of appeal.  Both parties filed their respective

10     notices of appeal on 24th May 2011.  The Prosecution presented

11     two grounds of appeal and Djordjevic presented 19 grounds of appeal.  On

12     the 27th May of last year, the Djordjevic Defence filed a motion

13     requesting an extension of time and word limit in respect of its appeal

14     brief.  At the Status Conference of 30th May 2011, I extended the

15     dead-line for filing appeal briefs by seven days to 15th August 2011 for

16     both parties.  In addition, I granted the Djordjevic Defence an extension

17     of up to 15.000 words for its appeal brief and granted the Prosecution

18     the same extension in respect of its brief in response.  Both parties

19     filed their appeal briefs on 15th August 2011.

20             At the Status Conference held on the 21st September 2011, the

21     Djordjevic Defence team requested an extension of time of 15 days for the

22     filing of its reply brief as well as an extension of the word limit by

23     6.000 words.  I granted both parties an extension of time till

24     26th October 2011 for the filing of their briefs and reply and also

25     granted the Djordjevic Defence team an extension of up to 3.000 words.


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 1     Both parties filed their response briefs on 26th September 2011 and

 2     subsequently filed their reply briefs on 26th October 2011.

 3             As requested by myself, the Prosecution filed a public redacted

 4     version of its appeal brief on 17th August 2011.  Similarly, on

 5     30th September 2011, the Djordjevic Defence team filed its public

 6     redacted version.  This was later withheld pending determination of a

 7     confidential motion filed on 24th November 2011 by the Prosecution, in

 8     which it requested the redaction of certain information from Djordjevic's

 9     appeal brief.  The Djordjevic Defence filed its confidential response to

10     the motion on 7th December of last year and the Prosecution filed its

11     confidential reply two days later on the 9th of December of last year.

12             I issued a confidential decision on this matter in my capacity as

13     pre-Appeal Judge on 20 January 2012, and in that decision I granted the

14     Prosecution motion in part and ordered, inter alia, Djordjevic to file a

15     new public redacted version of his appeal brief, incorporating one

16     additional redaction.  Pursuant to that decision, appellant Djordjevic

17     re-filed the public redacted version of this appeal brief on 23rd January

18     of this year.  Both parties filed public redacted versions of their

19     response briefs on 30th January 2012.  The Prosecution filed its public

20     redacted reply brief on 8 February 2012 and appellant Djordjevic filed a

21     notice of re-classification of his reply brief on 9th February 2012.

22             Finally, in case any one of you is not aware of this, I note that

23     on the 7th of March of this year the Tribunal's President,

24     President Meron, issued an order replacing a Judge in this appeal.

25     Pursuant to that order, Judge Khalida Rachid Khan was assigned to the


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 1     Bench in place of Judge Fausto Pocar.  So that's the procedural history.

 2             Having said this I'll move to the next matter on the issue, on

 3     the agenda, and that is any issue that the parties might wish to raise,

 4     and I start with the Prosecution.  Is there any matter that you would

 5     like to raise?

 6             MR. WOOD:  No.  Thank you, Your Honour.

 7             JUDGE AGIUS:  I thank you.

 8             Mr. Djurdjic, any matter that you would like to raise?

 9             MR. DJURDJIC: [Interpretation] No.  Thank you, Your Honour.

10             JUDGE AGIUS:  I thank you.

11             And appellant Djordjevic, is there anything that you wish to

12     state?  Any matter that you would like to raise?

13             THE APPELLANT: [Interpretation] No.  Thank you, Your Honour.

14             JUDGE AGIUS:  Okay.  Before I conclude I just wanted to inform

15     you that the Chamber is working hard on this case and is pretty well

16     advanced in its preparation for the hearing.  My anticipation is that we

17     will soon have our documentation in preparation of the hearing ready.

18     We'll go through it, me and my colleagues, before we set a day for the

19     hearing of the appeal.  I anticipate that to happen either very late this

20     year or early next year.  Thank you.

21             This concludes today's Status Conference.  I take this

22     opportunity to thank you all for your attendance and now adjourn this

23     session.  Thank you.

24                           --- Whereupon the Status Conference

25                           adjourned at 9.43 a.m.