Decision on Prosecutor's Motion to withdraw one Sentence from the Prosecutor's Pre-trial Brief on Zoran Vukovic filed on 21 February 2000

IN THE TRIAL CHAMBER

Before:
Judge Florence Ndepele Mwachande Mumba, Presiding
Judge David Anthony Hunt
Judge Fausto Pocar

Registrar:
Mrs. Dorothee de Sampayo Garrido-Nijgh

Decision of:
8 March 2000

PROSECUTOR

v.

DRAGOLJUB KUNARAC
RADOMIR KOVAC
and
ZORAN VUKOVIC

_______________________________________________________________________________

DECISION ON PROSECUTOR’S MOTION TO WITHDRAW ONE SENTENCE FROM THE PROSECUTOR’S PRE-TRIAL BRIEF ON ZORAN VUKOVIC FILED ON 21 FEBRUARY 2000

_______________________________________________________________________________

Office of the Prosecutor:

Mr. Dirk Ryneveld
Ms. Peggy Kuo
Ms. Hildegard Uertz-Retzlaff

Counsel for the Accused:

Mr. Slavisa Prodanovic for the accused Dragoljub Kunarac
Mr. Momir Kolesar for the accused Radomir Kovac
Mr. Goran Jovanovic for the accused Zoran Vukovic

This Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia,

NOTING paragraph 8. of the Prosecutor’s pre-trial brief with respect to the accused Zoran Vukovic filed on 21 February 2000 dealing with the alleged participation of the accused Zoran Vukovic in the killing of an elderly man at Buk Bijela, which the Prosecutor intended to adduce as a sentencing factor without charging it as a separate count of the indictment,

NOTING FURTHER the discussion of this issue during the pre-trial conference on 2 March 2000 (Transcript pages 175 – 178) and the Prosecutor’s contention that she will not be able to prove the accused’s participation beyond reasonable doubt, but is of the opinion that sentencing factors need not be proven to a standard of reasonable doubt under the Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the Tribunal,

AND NOTING the Prosecutor’s "Motion to withdraw one sentence from the Prosecutor’s pre-trial brief on Zoran Vukovic filed on 21 February 2000" of 6 March 2000 ("Motion"), in which the Prosecutor moves to withdraw the final sentence and clarifying footnote of paragraph 8. of the said pre-trial brief,

CONSIDERING that the Motion is to the benefit of the accused Zoran Vukovic and that it is therefore not necessary to wait for a reply from the Defence for the accused,

HEREBY GRANTS

the Motion, so that paragraph 8 of the pre-trial brief now reads:

"8. After the attack on Trosanj and the neighbouring village of Mjesaja, the accused Vukovic and other soldiers arrested the surviving women, children and a few elderly men and took them to the Buk Bijela construction site. There, the accused Vukovic and other soldiers interrogated, threatened and humiliated these Muslim civilians."

Done in both English and French, the English version being authoritative.

_______________________________
Judge Mumba
Presiding

Dated this eighth day of March 2000,
At The Hague,
The Netherlands

[Seal of the Tribunal]