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1 Wednesday, 16 May 2012
2 [Status Conference]
3 [Open session]
4 [The appellants entered court]
5 --- Upon commencing at 2.38 p.m.
6 JUDGE LIU: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
7 Well, I'm sorry for the delay.
8 Madam Registrar, would you please call the case.
9 THE REGISTRAR: Good afternoon, Your Honour. This is case number
10 IT-05-87-A, the Prosecutor versus Sainovic et al.
11 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
12 May I now please have the appearances of the parties; for the
13 Prosecution first.
14 MR. CROSS: Good afternoon, Your Honour. For the Prosecution, my
15 name is Matthew Cross, together with Ms. Laurel Baig, and our
16 Case Manager is Colin Nawrot.
17 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
18 And now the Defence counsel, please.
19 MR. FILA: [Interpretation] Your Honour, my name is Toma Fila, and
20 I'm Defence counsel for Mr. Nikola Sainovic. Thank you.
21 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
22 MR. VISNJIC: [Interpretation] Good afternoon, Your Honour.
23 Tomislav Visnjic and Peter Robinson for Defence of General Ojdanic.
24 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
25 MR. ALEKSIC: [Interpretation] Good day, Your Honour.
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1 Aleksandar Aleksic for General Nebojsa Pavkovic.
2 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
3 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Good day, Your Honour. My name is
4 Mihajlo Bakrac, and I am Defence counsel for Mr. Vladimir Lazarevic.
5 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
6 MR. IVETIC: Good afternoon, Your Honour. Attorneys Branko Lukic
7 as lead counsel and Dragan Ivetic as co-counsel for Mr. Sreten Lukic this
8 afternoon.
9 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
10 Before we start, can all the parties hear the proceedings in a
11 language they can understand?
12 Mr. Sainovic, can you hear the proceedings in a language that you
13 understand?
14 THE APPELLANT SAINOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour. I
15 can.
16 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
17 Mr. Ojdanic?
18 THE APPELLANT OJDANIC: [Interpretation] Yes, I can, Your Honour.
19 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
20 Mr. Pavkovic?
21 THE APPELLANT PAVKOVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, I can. I can
22 follow the proceedings, Your Honour.
23 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
24 Mr. Lazarevic?
25 THE APPELLANT LAZAREVIC: [Interpretation] Everything's fine. I
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1 can follow.
2 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
3 Mr. Lukic?
4 THE APPELLANT LUKIC: [Interpretation] I can follow the
5 proceedings, Your Honour.
6 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
7 This Status Conference is called in accordance with the
8 Rule 65 bis (B) of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the Tribunal
9 which requires a Status Conference to be convened every 120 days during
10 the appeal proceedings to allow any person in custody pending appeal an
11 opportunity to raise issues in relation thereto, including the mental and
12 physical condition of that person.
13 In the present case, the last Status Conference was held on the
14 19th January, 2012. Today's Status Conference was scheduled by order
15 issued on 29th March, 2012.
16 First I would like to inquire into the status of the detention
17 conditions and the health situation of the Appellants.
18 If you have any concerns in relation to the detention conditions
19 or your state of health that cannot be resolved through the standard
20 procedures, I would invite you to raise them now, if you wish. This
21 discussion can take place in private session.
22 Yes, Mr. Lazarevic. Please.
23 THE APPELLANT LAZAREVIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, thank you
24 for giving me the floor on this occasion.
25 With your leave, I feel it necessary to provide you with two
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1 pieces of information that concern my health. I don't really want to go
2 into the concrete problems that relate to my health. But the first piece
3 of information concerns the previous Status Conference held in January of
4 this year. This information has to do with my request submitted to the
5 authorities in the Detention Unit, in the Detention Clinic and in the
6 Detention Hospital. A request to assist me and -- to assist me in having
7 a prothesis implanted in my upper jaw. I took into consideration your
8 suggestion at the previous Status Conference and in fact your order, and
9 on the 4th of April this year I submitted a request to the authorities
10 for appropriate assistance. This request consisted of six pages, and I
11 stressed the fact that this problem had an effect on my health and, in
12 particular, on my digestive system.
13 I would briefly like to point out a matter that concerns the
14 problem I have. For several months now, the doctors from the
15 Bronovo Hospital have been trying to use various methods of diagnosis in
16 order to detect the illness afflicting my digestive system, and they
17 suspect that the illness concerned is Crohn's illness, which cannot be
18 cured and is a serious illness. To date, a diagnosis has not been
19 established. The problems I have persist, and my internal organs have
20 been bleeding for several months now. Only a partial form of therapy is
21 being provided for the time being, and it doesn't have any particular
22 results.
23 Given the state of my upper jaw and the fact that I have
24 practically no teeth left, this condition affects the illness I have and
25 also my quality of life. From the time when I submitted the request and
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1 to date, given that I haven't received an answer of any kind from the
2 authorities whom I contacted, I tried to establish direct contact, and I
3 asked orally for a response. I asked whether I would be provided with
4 assistance. First of all, on the 24th of April I made this request, and
5 the duty doctor in the clinic quite simply didn't give me an answer. He
6 didn't have an answer. On the 10th of May, I asked him again to provide
7 me with an answer.
8 I'll paraphrase what he said. He said that he did not yet have
9 an answer to my request, and he suggested that I contact the Court for
10 assistance.
11 Your Honour, I acted in accordance with your order from the last
12 Status Conference, and I submitted a request to the authorities in which
13 I asked for assistance in solving a serious health problem. I provided
14 them with a written request in which I asked them to provide me with
15 assistance. I asked whether this was technically possible, whether they
16 could do anything to organise such assistance, because if that were not
17 possible, I would have to contact someone else for assistance.
18 Given that that is the situation and I haven't received a
19 response yet, with your leave, Your Honour, I would like to ask you
20 whether this means that I now have to contact the Registry and ask them
21 for assistance. Because now I no longer know whom I should contact,
22 bearing in mind that this situation and such problems should not be
23 tolerated.
24 That was my first piece of information.
25 The second piece of information is even briefer.
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1 Your Honour, I'd like to inform you that the Tribunal's Registry
2 and my Defence are finalizing their preparations to have counsel of --
3 doctors from Serbia accepted or, rather, received. They should appear
4 towards the end of this month or the beginning of June. And, as medical
5 experts, they are to examine me to gain an overall impression of my
6 health condition, and I personally hope that they will also be able to
7 provide me with some form of assistance.
8 Your Honour, I would like to thank you once more for having given
9 me the floor, and for your patience.
10 I have now concluded. Thank you.
11 JUDGE LIU: Thank you, Mr. Lazarevic.
12 Mr. Lazarevic, I take note of your submissions in which you claim
13 that your internal organs are bleeding for several months. I believe
14 that is a very serious problem.
15 However, as I have recalled on several occasions, according to
16 the Rule 80 and 81 of the detention rules, where a detainee is not
17 satisfied with the conditions of his or her detention, he or she is
18 entitled to make a complaint to the commanding officer or his
19 representative at any time. And in case of an unsatisfactory response,
20 to make a written complaint without censorship to the Registrar who shall
21 inform the present.
22 I hope you could follow these proceedings. At the same time, I,
23 of course, would draw the attention of the Registrar to your submissions.
24 MR. BAKRAC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, with your leave, if I
25 may take the floor.
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1 Mr. Lazarevic mentioned an exchange between the Defence and the
2 Registry, and that concerned an examination by a council of doctors, and
3 I just want it to be clear that they'll be a specialist for -- who will
4 be part of the council, and we hope to see whether he'll be able to
5 determine what the problems are. It will be a gastroenterologist.
6 As far as the problem that he has with his teeth, with his jaw,
7 that won't be dealt with in this examination by the council because
8 preparations were underway earlier on, and this problem came to a head
9 just before this Status Conference. So I will advise Mr. Lazarevic to
10 follow your instructions with regard to the problems he has with his
11 teeth. And given that he hasn't received a response from the duty doctor
12 and from the person in charge of detention, he will also have to contact
13 the Registry.
14 I wanted this all to be clear for the sake of the record. Thank
15 you, Your Honour.
16 JUDGE LIU: Thank you very much for your clarification.
17 Are there anybody else who would like to make a complaint?
18 Well, I see none.
19 Before we turn to any issues that parties may wish to raise, I
20 would like to note that there are currently no pending motions in the
21 present case.
22 At this point, I would like to ask the parties whether they have
23 any other issues that they would like to raise.
24 I see none.
25 Is there any issues that the Prosecution would like to raise?
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1 MR. CROSS: Nothing for us. Thank you, Your Honour.
2 JUDGE LIU: Thank you.
3 Well, I believe this concludes today's Status Conference. I
4 thank the parties for their attendance and adjourn the proceedings.
5 --- Whereupon the Status Conference adjourned
6 at 2.55 p.m.
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