Page 17667
1 Tuesday, 22 March 2005
2 [Open session]
3 --- Upon commencing at 2.19 p.m.
4 [The accused entered court]
5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Mr. Registrar, will you please
6 call the case.
7 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. Case
8 number IT-01-47-T, the Prosecutor versus Enver Hadzihasanovic and Amir
9 Kubura.
10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Can we have the appearances for
11 the Prosecution, please.
12 MR. MUNDIS: Thank you, Mr. President. Good afternoon,
13 Your Honours, counsel and everyone in and around the courtroom. For the
14 Prosecution Stefan Waespi and Daryl Mundis assisted today by Mr. Andres
15 Vatter our case manager.
16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you for the Defence.
17 MS. RESIDOVIC: [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Mr. President,
18 Your Honours. On behalf of Enver Hadzihasanovic, Edina Residovic, lead
19 counsel, Stephane Bourgon, co-counsel, and Alexis Demirdjian, legal
20 assistant. Thank you.
21 MR. IBRISIMOVIC: [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Your Honours.
22 On behalf of Mr. Kubura, Rodney Dixon, Fahrudin Ibrisimovic, and Nermin
23 Mulalic, legal assistant.
24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] On this day the 22nd of March,
25 2005, I bid good afternoon to all those present, the two representatives
Page 17668
1 of the Prosecution, the six Defence counsel, General Hadzihasanovic,
2 General Kubura, and all those present in this courtroom on the 200th day
3 of hearings. We shall first of all go into private session.
4 [Private session]
5 (redacted)
6 (redacted)
7 (redacted)
8 (redacted)
9 (redacted)
10 (redacted)
11 (redacted)
12 (redacted)
13 (redacted)
14 (redacted)
15 (redacted)
16 (redacted)
17 (redacted)
18 (redacted)
19 (redacted)
20 (redacted)
21 (redacted)
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 17669
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 Pages 17669-17680 redacted. Private session.
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 17681
1 (redacted)
2 [Open session]
3 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] The hearing is resumed in open
4 session, and we're going to address the question of scheduling for the
5 future weeks and months. So I shall give the floor to the Defence first.
6 Mr. Bourgon, who is already on his feet.
7 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. We --
8 before we begin the discussion on the schedule, I would prefer to make a
9 statement in private session.
10 [Private session]
11 (redacted)
12 (redacted)
13 (redacted)
14 (redacted)
15 (redacted)
16 (redacted)
17 (redacted)
18 (redacted)
19 (redacted)
20 (redacted)
21 (redacted)
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 17682
1 (redacted)
2 (redacted)
3 (redacted)
4 (redacted)
5 (redacted)
6 (redacted)
7 (redacted)
8 (redacted)
9 [Open session]
10 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] We are in open session,
11 Mr. President.
12 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] As we are in open session, the
13 aim of this part of the hearing is to discuss the schedule for the weeks
14 and months ahead, and the Defence told us that they wish to make some
15 observations about this, and Mr. Dixon has asked for some time to be
16 reserved for him, and the Prosecution also needs to provide us with some
17 information. So everyone will have a chance to comment on this issue, but
18 before giving the floor to the parties, I wish to recall that we, the
19 Judges, also have scheduling constraints. As you know, due to the
20 judicial -- the court holidays or the court recess which begins in the
21 week of the 24th of July, so we can't go beyond that. And also the Judges
22 are having a Plenary meeting on the 21st of July.
23 So in any event, should it be necessary, the last hearing can be
24 held on the 20th of July and not after that. So the 20th July is the
25 limit, the extreme limit. So this should be borne in mind.
Page 17683
1 We've also noted that there is a week that will -- when we will
2 not be sitting. That is the week from the 25th to the 29th of April, the
3 29th being a UN holiday.
4 Consequently, we have the end of the month of March, the three
5 weeks in April, the four weeks of May, four weeks in June, and three first
6 weeks of July on the outside. So within that time period, everything has
7 to be completed.
8 Who wishes to take the floor first? Mr. Dixon.
9 MR. DIXON: Thank you, Your Honours. Perhaps it's best if I
10 commence and then Mr. Mundis can follow me.
11 Your Honours, if I can say on behalf of all the parties having met
12 each other, we are confident that we can finish everything within the time
13 period that Your Honours have outlined and hopefully can be done sooner
14 than that.
15 Your Honours, looking at the case for Mr. Kubura, we propose that
16 his case should commence on the 11th of April. The reason why I gave that
17 date, Your Honour, is that if we do finish the military expert by Friday
18 the 1st of April, we would request a one-week break in the week commencing
19 4 April before we start our case. We wish to use that week to make final
20 contact with our witnesses and to bring many of them or make arrangements
21 to bring them to The Hague so that they can be ready to testify
22 thereafter. There will also be matters that we need to sort out with the
23 Prosecution in terms of documents and finalising any matters relating to
24 translation as well.
25 I can report on that matter, Your Honour, that at this stage we
Page 17684
1 foresee no problems with relation to the translation of the documents we
2 propose to use.
3 We were initially granted six weeks by Your Honours for our case.
4 We will be able to do our case within five weeks, and we therefore use --
5 wish to use the additional week as the week for the break before the start
6 of our case, the week commencing 4 April, and then to take five weeks
7 thereafter to complete our case taking into account the breaks in the week
8 Your Honour mentioned commencing 25 April, to finish our case by the week
9 ending 20 May.
10 Your Honours, I will talk more about how we will present the case
11 for Mr. Kubura, but before I do that, I did just wish to comment on the
12 closure of the case for Mr. Hadzihasanovic on the 1st of April. We are
13 using that date on the assumption that the expert witness can be completed
14 by then and also that any other matters such as Rule 92 bis matters will
15 also be finalised by then. If that wasn't to be the case, of course the
16 agenda would then have to shift back, and we would request that no matter
17 when the team for Mr. Hadzihasanovic closes its case, we are given the
18 opportunity to have a one-week break before we commence our case.
19 If, as Mr. Bourgon said yesterday, he's able to complete his
20 examination-in-chief of the military expert by the end of this week, we
21 would require no more than two hours on Tuesday with the military expert,
22 and as Mr. Mundis has said yesterday as well, he would require
23 approximately a day and a half, which would mean that by approximately
24 Wednesday next week, the cross-examination is complete, leaving some time
25 thereafter the Thursday and the Friday for re-examination and questions by
Page 17685
1 Your Honours. That would mean that we can finish everything by the 1st of
2 April, subject of course to any other outstanding matters that might
3 arise.
4 In addition to that through the helpful inquiries of the
5 registrar, we have been able to ascertain that there would be the
6 possibility of having additional hearings next week. I see Mr. Registrar
7 is shaking his head. But the last indication were is we would have the
8 possibility of adding if necessary, let's hope it doesn't come to that,
9 but if necessary we could use extra time next week to finish by 1 April.
10 If that is not possible, Your Honours, then we are going to have to ensure
11 that we use the time available to finish by 1 April. If it goes over 1
12 April, our only request is that we still be given a week when the
13 Hadzihasanovic team closes its case before we start our case, whenever
14 that might be. So that is our first request, Your Honour.
15 In respect of the way in which the case for Mr. Kubura will be
16 presented, assuming that we then commence with the opening on the 11th of
17 April, we would request that we only schedule witnesses for four days per
18 week, from Monday until Thursday, and that we do not schedule any
19 witnesses for the Friday of each week on the basis that we can use the
20 Friday as a reserve day if we run over, but more importantly that we can
21 use that day to finalise with the Prosecution any documents that we are
22 going to present to witnesses the following week, make sure all
23 translations are in order, and also provide further information in respect
24 of our Rule 65 summaries if necessary. That would over a five-week period
25 give us approximately 20 days of court time, that's excluding the Fridays
Page 17686
1 of each week, and we have assessed that we could complete all of our
2 witnesses within that time.
3 We will have approximately 20 witnesses. A final list is being
4 prepared and will be forwarded to Your Honours and the Prosecution by the
5 end of this month. As Your Honours will recall, the list we had initially
6 was a provisional list and we were given the option of putting in a final
7 list before we commenced our case. So we would be looking at
8 approximately one witness per day, sitting four days a week with the
9 Friday off for preparation but there to use if we need it, if there is any
10 running over of time.
11 So that is our second request, Your Honour, that we are permitted
12 to schedule witnesses for four days of the week only. And we have worked
13 out that we would be able to then complete our case by Friday, the 20th of
14 May.
15 Your Honour, the witnesses that are to be called are mostly
16 witnesses who were members of the 7th Brigade at the time. We will not be
17 calling any witnesses as to questions of general context. The witnesses
18 will all focus on the key allegations made against Mr. Kubura and, amongst
19 other things, will focus on showing that the 7th Brigade was not involved
20 in any of the alleged offences that are put forward in the indictment.
21 In respect of those witnesses, there are two former members of the
22 7th Brigade who are currently serving with the UN in UN missions outside
23 of Bosnia, and we are making arrangements to make sure they are able to
24 come here during the five-week period that we present our case. We might,
25 therefore, have to be a little flexible in terms of when they appear
Page 17687
1 because they need to get permission from the United Nations to come here
2 to testify. We don't anticipate there will be any problems with them
3 coming, but we just need to be able to fit them in when exactly they are
4 able to get leave in that five-week period.
5 And the second matter is that we will in all likelihood make an
6 application for two persons to give testimony by videolink because of
7 their health condition. I have not yet had the opportunity to speak to
8 Mr. Mundis about this issue, but I will do so in due course, and it might
9 be possible that this can be resolved between us so that a joint
10 application is made to Your Honours for that videolink to be set up at a
11 time that is convenient for both of the parties, once again during the
12 five-week period that I have identified.
13 As I've also said, we do not anticipate at this stage that there
14 will be any translation problems of the documents that we do wish to show
15 the witnesses. A list has already been prepared and those documents have
16 been given to the Prosecution, and many of those documents will be used by
17 the witnesses who do attend.
18 So, Your Honours, at this stage I merely bring to your attention
19 that the only two potential areas where the schedule might be disrupted is
20 the witnesses coming from the UN and the videolink, but we don't
21 anticipate that that would change the five-week period that we will use
22 for our case.
23 Your Honour, those are our submissions in respect of how we
24 propose to present the case for Mr. Kubura, and assuming that the team for
25 Mr. Hadzihasanovic completes by 1 April, that would be the schedule that
Page 17688
1 we propose, a one-week break, then commencing on the 11th of April,
2 running for two weeks, having a further week break as Your Honours have
3 indicated, and then a final three weeks, closing by Friday, the 20th of
4 May.
5 Your Honour, our applications would be that if that is in order
6 with you that that be granted so that we can then commence our planning to
7 ensure that the witnesses are brought here in time. Thank you for the
8 opportunity to address that matter. I know my learned friend Mr. Mundis
9 has submissions to make in response. Thank you, Your Honours.
10 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you for this information.
11 The Judges will discuss the matter, but I would personally like to say
12 that what you have suggested seems quite acceptable to me. The two
13 outstanding problems concern the two witnesses who work for the UN.
14 Naturally you should soon take the necessary steps to obtain authorisation
15 for them appear as witnesses. And then, as you know, the videolink is a
16 means that we have accepted, but this depends on the medical condition of
17 witnesses. I assume that you have medical arguments in support of your
18 request. This could proceed very quickly because the registrar has all
19 the resources necessary.
20 So we have 20 witnesses who are to appear at 20 hearings, and if
21 everything goes as we hope, the case should be closed -- your case should
22 be closed by the 20th of May provided that we can start with your case on
23 the 11th of April.
24 Mr. Mundis.
25 MR. MUNDIS: Thank you, Mr. President. I'm sure it was a slight
Page 17689
1 oversight by my learned colleague, Mr. Dixon, but when the parties first
2 met several weeks ago at my invitation, we all agreed and wanted to
3 reiterate that of course all issues pertaining to the scheduling is at the
4 control or under the control of the Trial Chamber and what the parties
5 were seeking to do first by meeting together and then by meeting with the
6 Chamber's legal officer and senior legal officer was to attempt to come up
7 with some scheduling ideas that were me actually agreeable to the parties
8 in order to put that before Your Honours with the hopeful expectation that
9 what we had proposed would be acceptable. But of course we all understand
10 that scheduling and control of the proceedings is fully in the hands of
11 the Trial Chamber.
12 Let me just respond to what distinct issues with respect to the
13 completion of the Hadzihasanovic case. As my learned colleague Mr. Dixon
14 pointed out, I did inform the Defence for both teams as well as the
15 Chamber's legal officer that based on the completion of our analysis of
16 the expert's report, it is anticipated that the Prosecution will require
17 no more than a day and a half to conduct its cross-examination. That of
18 course is subject to the caveat that we haven't heard all of the witness's
19 testimony, so I may need additional -- a little bit more time in the event
20 that during his viva voce testimony he expands upon some of the areas
21 covered in his report. Nevertheless, assuming again that Mr. Bourgon
22 completes his direct examination by the end of this week and that the
23 Kubura team takes two hours, I would expect to be done with the
24 cross-examination by the completion of our session on Wednesday, allowing
25 two days, Thursday and Friday, for re-examination and any questions that
Page 17690
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12 Blank page inserted to ensure pagination corresponds between the French and
13 English transcripts.
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 17691
1 the Bench may have following examination by the parties. So I don't
2 anticipate the need for any additional sittings next week in order to
3 complete the testimony of the expert witness.
4 The second issue concerning the Hadzihasanovic -- completion of
5 the Hadzihasanovic case relates to the proposed 92 bis witness statements.
6 Your Honours are aware that the parties are in the process of discussing
7 that. We have informed the Hadzihasanovic Defence team that, of the
8 proposed witness statements, we're still reviewing two of them, but with
9 respect to the remainder of those, the Prosecution will not object to
10 those. I'm putting that on the record. Nor will we seek to have those
11 witnesses brought here for purposes of cross-examination. I expect to
12 have our analysis of the final two statements done within the next day or
13 so and I'll inform the Defence of that accordingly, but we don't
14 anticipate any problems with respect to the proposed written witness
15 statements that the Hadzihasanovic Defence has or will be filing before
16 Your Honours. So we don't anticipate any problems with either the expert
17 or the 92 bis statements in terms of impacting on the ability of the
18 Hadzihasanovic team to finish their trial by the 1st of April.
19 With respect to all of the scheduling issues raised by my learned
20 friend from the Kubura Defence, the Prosecution certainly agrees with
21 their proposals and thinks that their proposed schedule is both a
22 reasonable one and one which will allow us to complete the Kubura Defence
23 case by the 20th of May. I wouldn't anticipate any problems with the
24 videolink testimony, of course pending proper medical reports with respect
25 to the two witnesses that they've proposed to be heard by way of
Page 17692
1 videolink.
2 That brings me, Mr. President and Your Honours, to the first topic
3 that concerns the Prosecution, and that is, as Your Honours can probably
4 anticipate, the Prosecution will be filing a motion seeking leave to
5 reopen our case with respect to tendering a number of documents. I stress
6 the documents, because at this point, and we are finalising our
7 consideration on this issue, I wouldn't expect that we would be seeking
8 leave to call witnesses, although it's possible there may be a small
9 number of witnesses that we might seek leave to have called, and this of
10 course can also depend upon the position taken by the two Defence teams,
11 as Your Honours undoubtedly will recall during the Prosecution case when
12 large numbers of documents were tendered from the bar table the Defence
13 suggested that we have witnesses come in and testify about the documents,
14 where they came from, et cetera. So if the Chamber wishes us to call
15 people from the archives or investigators who receive the documents or
16 investigators who seize the documents, we may seek leave to do that, or of
17 course if ordered to do so, we will endeavour to bring those witnesses.
18 With respect to the documents, Mr. President, we anticipate that
19 we're talking less than 50 documents. All of the documents have
20 previously been disclosed -- as of this date have been disclosed to the
21 Defence. Once we have identified the precise documents that we will be
22 filing a motion seeking leave to reopen, we will then disclose those
23 specific documents to both Defence teams so there is no confusion as to
24 which documents are being considered.
25 We are working and endeavouring to file this motion as quickly as
Page 17693
1 possible so that the Defence can have an opportunity to respond to that
2 filing and, in the event that the Prosecution is granted lever to reopen,
3 we would seek the Trial Chamber's permission to do that immediately after
4 the close of the Kubura case. That would be the week commencing the 23rd
5 of May, so that there is no interruption or long gaps where time is being
6 eaten up pending resolution of the issue of the Prosecution reopening of
7 its case. So our goal is to get this motion filed as quickly as possible
8 so that the responses can be filed and Your Honours will have time to
9 consider our application to reopen our case, and if that is granted in
10 total or in part, we could immediately do that during the week of the 23rd
11 of May. And of course if the Defence requires additional time in order to
12 reopen parts of their case, that is entirely up to them, but we'll have to
13 just basically see how it goes with respect to the Prosecution motion to
14 reopen.
15 With respect to scheduling I do have one other issue,
16 Mr. President, that I would ask to address the Chamber in private session
17 if I may.
18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Let's go into private session.
19 [Private session]
20 (redacted)
21 (redacted)
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 17694
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 Page 17694 redacted. Private session.
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 17695
1 (redacted)
2 (redacted)
3 (redacted)
4 (redacted)
5 (redacted)
6 (redacted)
7 (redacted)
8 (redacted)
9 (redacted)
10 (redacted)
11 (redacted)
12 (redacted)
13 (redacted)
14 (redacted)
15 (redacted)
16 (redacted)
17 (redacted)
18 (redacted)
19 (redacted)
20 (redacted)
21 [Open session]
22 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] We're back in open session,
23 Mr. President.
24 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] We're in open session now.
25 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. I'd just
Page 17696
1 like to make a few comments with regard to the Prosecution's request to
2 open their case. If I have understood the Prosecution, they want to
3 reopen their case. It's not a matter of rebuttal evidence.
4 Mr. President, for the Defence it's important that the procedure
5 followed, that is to say whether or not the Prosecution be allowed to
6 reopen their case, this is something that should be determined on an
7 objective basis and above all we must be familiar with the procedures
8 followed. There are certain conditions that must be met, Mr. President in
9 order to be granted leave to reopen one's case. This does not necessarily
10 depend on the content of the evidence one wants to presents but, rather,
11 on the reason for which the Prosecution feels it is necessary to present
12 additional evidence to its case and the reasons for which they should be
13 granted leave to do so.
14 Mr. President, this is why we suggest a twofold procedure should
15 be followed. First of all, the Prosecution -- we would like the
16 Prosecution to inform us in its motion of the reasons for which they would
17 like to be granted leave to reopen their case. We'd also like to be
18 informed of the justification for such a course of action. We'd also like
19 to be informed of when the documents would be disclosed to us and in
20 particular to know whether these documents have already been disclosed to
21 us. If these are documents that have already been disclosed then we have
22 no problem. It is sufficient to inform us of the exhibit numbers. And
23 also we would like to know in what manner these documents will be taken
24 into consideration. We believe that a decision should first be rendered
25 with regard to how opportune it is to reopen their case, and then we
Page 17697
1 should be provided with information of the assessment of the evidence. We
2 believe that there are two stages that have to be followed.
3 First of all, there should be a request for leave to be granted, a
4 motion for leave to be granted, then we should have an assessment of what
5 the Prosecution actually desires in terms of witnesses and documents.
6 When I have a look at the dates that the Prosecution has put forward,
7 naturally at this point in time we don't know what the Trial Chamber has
8 in mind in terms of -- or in regard to additional evidence. We don't know
9 whether there will be additional evidence or not. But we have in such a
10 case very little time left for the closing arguments in July. We believe
11 that the schedule might be somewhat overcharged depending on what the
12 Chamber desires as far as additional evidence is concerned, whether this
13 evidence takes the forms of witnesses or documents.
14 Thank you, Mr. President.
15 (redacted)
16 (redacted)
17 (redacted)
18 (redacted)
19 (redacted)
20 MR. DIXON: Your Honours, if we could perhaps go into private
21 session for the responses.
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 [Private session]
Page 17698
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 Pages 17698 redacted. Private session.
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 17699
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 Page 17699 redacted. Private session.
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 17700
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 Page 17700 redacted. Private session.
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 17701
1 (redacted)
2 (redacted)
3 (redacted)
4 (redacted)
5 (redacted)
6 (redacted)
7 (redacted)
8 (redacted)
9 (redacted)
10 (redacted)
11 (redacted)
12 (redacted)
13 (redacted)
14 (redacted)
15 (redacted)
16 [Open session]
17 THE REGISTRAR: [Interpretation] We are in open session.
18 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] So in open session I'm asking
19 the Prosecution to tell me what the legal basis is for the request to
20 reopen the Prosecution case, and I wanted to know whether it was based on
21 Rule 85 paragraph (A)(iii), or on the jurisprudence of the Tribunal with
22 respect to the reopening of a case.
23 MR. MUNDIS: Thank you, Mr. President. It is in respect of the
24 jurisprudence of the Tribunal. Rule -- our interpretation of Rule
25 85(A)(iii) is that that type of evidence pursuant to the Rule which refers
Page 17702
1 to rebuttal would be the type of evidence which the Prosecution could not
2 have reasonably anticipated putting before the Trial Chamber during the
3 Prosecution case in chief.
4 We are talking here about evidence which came into our possession
5 after the close of our case. Therefore, we couldn't have anticipated
6 making such evidence available to Your Honours. Your Honours might recall
7 previously the Trial Chamber actually referred the parties to the Celebici
8 appeals judgement which talks about reopening. We will be relying on and
9 our motion will put forward our position, but we are relying on the
10 jurisprudence of the Tribunal and case law to the effect of the legal
11 standards that are involved in reopening of a case, particularly when one
12 is dealing with evidence that came into one of the party's possession
13 after the close of their case. So we're not at this point talking about a
14 case in rebuttal but, rather, reopening our case with respect to evidence
15 which came into our possession after the close of our case.
16 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Thank you. Does the Defence
17 have anything to add? Mr. Bourgon? No? The other Defence team?
18 MR. DIXON: Your Honour, thank you, yes. I know this matter will
19 be discussed at length in the motions, but if we can at this point simply
20 clarify that, as my learned friend has said, all of the documents that
21 they will be relying upon they weren't in receipt of before they closed
22 their case, and that they will only be seeking to introduce documents
23 which they actually received after the close of the case. I think that
24 narrows the issue much more, because we have seen documents presented in
25 cross-examination that the Prosecution did have before the close of their
Page 17703
1 case which were disclosed to us but which they didn't choose to introduce
2 in their case, and there have been instances where some of those documents
3 have been introduced for the limited purpose of memory refreshing. And as
4 I understand from what my learned friend is saying, none of those
5 documents will be applied to be introduced after the close of their case
6 but it is only documents they received after the -- the close of their
7 case.
8 Our submission will be, Your Honours, and of course we will
9 outline this more once we have the motion, as I said earlier on, that if
10 those documents could have been obtained during the Prosecution case
11 through proper investigation and due diligence, then the Prosecution
12 should not be permitted now when they have obtained the information
13 through ongoing investigations to use that material. If that material was
14 readily available to them in 2000 or 2001, then that's when it should have
15 been obtained, and they should not be permitted to investigating
16 endlessly. As we've said many times before some end has to be put to this
17 matter. But we will outline that more in our written submissions and oral
18 submissions later, Your Honour. Thank you.
19 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well, Mr. Mundis.
20 MR. MUNDIS: Thank you. Let me -- let me again stress so that
21 everyone is 100 per cent absolutely clear. I have directed the members of
22 our trial team and the support team for this members of this trial team to
23 consider only documents that came into the Prosecution's possession after
24 the close of our case. We are not considering any documents that we had
25 in our possession prior to the close of our case. The issue of due
Page 17704
1 diligence will be addressed in our -- in our motion but just so that
2 everyone is clear, we are only focusing on documents that came into our
3 possession after the 22nd of July, 2004, which, if memory serves me, is
4 the day the Prosecution rested its case.
5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Looking at the
6 transcript in English, Mr. Dixon son has contributed a small shade of
7 meaning. They are telling us that the Prosecution should not be granted
8 leave to produce new documents if they had the ability to have them before
9 in the year 2000 and 2001. This is a very fine nuance. What is the
10 position of the Prosecution regarding this point?
11 MR. MUNDIS: Mr. President, without going into too great of
12 detail, the case law does require the Prosecution or any party seeking to
13 reopen its case or to present additional evidence such as additional
14 evidence on appeal pursuant to Rule 115 and the standards are -- are very,
15 very similar, the party who wishes to put additional or new evidence
16 before a Chamber must demonstrate due diligence. Our motion will -- will
17 address the issue of due diligence and the steps that were taken in terms
18 of the investigation of this case. We will do that by attaching to our
19 motion some of the requests what we call requests for assistance, RFAs,
20 which are documents that we send to the Bosnian authorities seeking access
21 to archives, documents, et cetera, witnesses. We will attach some of
22 those requests for assistance to our motion as annexes demonstrating the
23 steps we took.
24 I also anticipate that attached to our motion there very well
25 might be an affidavit from the deputy investigation commander who oversaw,
Page 17705
1 among other things, the investigation of this case, who will explain in
2 his affidavit or statement the steps that were taken with respect to some
3 of the archives. But let me also say that which again should not come as
4 a surprise, as the Trial Chamber is aware, the Tribunal -- or the
5 Prosecution and the Tribunal earlier this year has indicted Rasim Delic,
6 and many of the investigative steps that resulted in us obtaining these
7 documents after the close of the Prosecution case against the two accused
8 in this courtroom, these documents were obtained pursuant to our
9 investigation which resulted in the indictment of Rasim Delic. So what
10 happened was we were looking at a different time period, that is 1995, and
11 among the material pertaining to 1995 were documents relating to 1993, for
12 example. And so our motion will set forth exactly what steps we took,
13 what access we had to certain archives, and the results of those steps
14 which, our view is, will explain the steps we took with respect to this
15 investigation and our submission in our written pleadings will explain
16 fully what steps were taken and what the results of those steps were,
17 whether access was granted or whether access for whatever reason was
18 denied to us to go in and search certain archives for material. But we
19 will -- I anticipate our motion will be very clear as to the steps we
20 took. We will be explaining basically the source of the documents. They
21 come from one of three archives as well as a specific request for
22 assistance concerning court records of Mr. Ramo Durmis, which is a fourth
23 category. Our motion will be -- will break down the documents in terms of
24 where they came from and will explain to the Trial Chamber the steps that
25 we took in fulfilling the due diligence obligations that we have.
Page 17706
1 So we believe that our motion will address these issues, and of
2 course the Defence will respond to our motion and -- so that the Trial
3 Chamber is in a position to render whatever decision the Chamber feels
4 best advances the cause of truth finding and justice.
5 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. The sooner the
6 better. So please seek to file those motions as soon as possible so that
7 the Defence can respond and so that we, too, will be able to render our
8 decisions in writing so as to avoid any waste of time.
9 Mr. Bourgon.
10 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. We are
11 having an exchange of view about the investigations, but the point that I
12 wish to address is that the decision on granting leave should be separate
13 from the decision on the substance. What I wish to say is that the
14 documents should be mixed with the decision to reopen or not.
15 When the Prosecution presents its arguments about due diligence in
16 obtaining those documents, we believe that it is important not to consider
17 the documents at that stage but, rather, to consider how certain documents
18 were obtained, and then if a grant -- leave is granted, then we can look
19 at the substance of those documents.
20 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Yes. Mr. Mundis, the Defence
21 would like your motion to be divided up into two. First, motion to seek
22 leave to reopen and then the motion will be motivated by the fact that you
23 did not have knowledge of those documents, that you discovered them during
24 subsequent investigations, et cetera. And once the decision is rendered
25 regarding the opportuneness of reopening the case, then there would be a
Page 17707
1 second motion regarding the admission of so many documents, which would
2 allow the Defence the possibility to challenge the documents one by one.
3 So they are suggesting that you divide this procedure into two.
4 MR. MUNDIS: Which again, Mr. President, is -- comes as no
5 surprise. The Defence informed us of their position with respect to this
6 question of modalities during our earlier meetings.
7 Our position, Mr. President, really is a twofold one. First of
8 all, the proposed procedure that Mr. Bourgon has described would
9 inevitably take many, many weeks to complete in terms of us filing a
10 motions, the Defence responding, a written response from the Chamber, then
11 us filing a second motion, then the Defence responding, then perhaps a
12 document-by-document argument similar to the contested document hearings
13 we had during the course of the trial followed by a decision, followed by
14 us reopening, tendering the documents, and closing our case.
15 Our position is that the Tribunal is comprised of Trial Chambers
16 made up of professional Judges. There can be, and I've said this in other
17 contexts, there can be no prejudice with professional Judges, and so our
18 position is: In order to expedite the proceedings, there is no need to go
19 through a two-step process because the two-step process will inevitably
20 mean that we do not finish our work here by the 20th of July or,
21 alternatively, because of the length of time involved, the Prosecution is
22 precluded from putting important new evidence before Your Honours, thus
23 precluding perhaps the Trial Chamber from completely fulfilling its duties
24 and responsibilities.
25 Our view is because Your Honours are professional Judges and
Page 17708
1 because the issue of prejudice does not arise when we're dealing with
2 professional Judges, we believe the best course of action would be for
3 Your Honours to have our motion, have any documents that explain the due
4 diligence steps that we take attached as annexes and for us to file at the
5 same time the proposed documents so that Your Honours can make
6 determinations as to the relevance or importance of the documents all in
7 one decision-making process, if you will. We believe that the alternative
8 would be a timely one and because of the fact that Your Honours are
9 professional Judges, we believe that the issue of potential prejudice
10 is -- is, to use a colloquial term, a non-starter because of the nature of
11 cases held and heard before Trial Chambers of professional Judges.
12 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] I should like to remind the
13 parties that when they file a motion they do what they wish, and then it's
14 up to the Judges to appreciate and assess them.
15 Mr. Bourgon.
16 MR. BOURGON: [Interpretation] Thank you, Mr. President. I haven't
17 counted the number of times the word "professional" was used, but in any
18 way, we are fully aware that the Chamber is highly professional, and this
19 is something that the Defence has never doubted. That is not the point.
20 The point is that when we're talking about due diligence in
21 obtaining something is one thing, and what is the content of the document
22 is quite a different matter. These are two separate matters.
23 I wanted to get a document. Did I show due diligence in obtaining
24 it? That is one thing. What is the document and what is its use is
25 another matter. This document should not be an argument to affect the due
Page 17709
1 diligence discussion, and we believe that there is every possibility of
2 completing everything within the time limits discussed. The Prosecution
3 file their motion, then we respond very quickly to expedite things. If
4 leave is granted, if it has fulfilled the criteria necessary for
5 reopening, then we look at the documents. I think it is the week of the
6 3rd of May. We will have plenty of time to see during that week, to see
7 what the documents are, by the point is whether the Prosecution fulfils
8 the criteria to be granted leave to reopen its case.
9 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. We will discuss this
10 amongst ourselves, and we will let you know what is to be done.
11 I should like us to go into private session once again.
12 [Private session]
13 (redacted)
14 (redacted)
15 (redacted)
16 (redacted)
17 (redacted)
18 (redacted)
19 (redacted)
20 (redacted)
21 (redacted)
22 (redacted)
23 (redacted)
24 (redacted)
25 (redacted)
Page 17710
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11 Page 17710 redacted. Private session.
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Page 17711
1 (redacted)
2 (redacted)
3 (redacted)
4 (redacted)
5 (redacted)
6 (redacted)
7 (redacted)
8 (redacted)
9 (redacted)
10 (redacted)
11 (redacted)
12 (redacted)
13 (redacted)
14 (redacted)
15 (redacted)
16 (redacted)
17 (redacted)
18 (redacted)
19 (redacted)
20 (redacted)
21 (redacted)
22 (redacted)
23 [Open session]
24 THE REGISTRAR: [No interpretation]
25 JUDGE ANTONETTI: [Interpretation] Very well. Now that we are in
Page 17712
1 open session, are there any other matters to be raised? If there are no
2 other matters to be raised, I invite you to come to the hearing that will
3 start tomorrow at 2.15. Thank you.
4 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 6.52 p.m.,
5 to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 23rd day of
6 March, 2005, at 2.15 p.m.
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25