Please note that this is not a verbatim transcript of the Press Briefing. It is merely a summary.

Date: 06.04.2006
Time: 12:00

Registry and Chambers:

Christian Chartier, Senior Information Officer, made the following statement:

Good Afternoon.

As you may know, I will be giving the weekly briefing until we secure a replacement for Jim Landale. Alexandra Milenov is now back doing her work as the Registry liaison officer in the Tribunal's Belgrade office.

During the extraordinary plenary session held on Wednesday, 29 March, the Judges amended Rule 15bis (Absence of a Judge) and adopted a new Rule 15ter (Reserve Judges). Entering into force today, the new rules reflect Security Council Resolution 1660 passed on 28 February 2006. As a reminder: Security Council resolution 1660 permits the Secretary-General to appoint, at the request of the Tribunal President, Reserve Judges from the Tribunal’s pool of Ad litem Judges to specific trials. Reserve Judges will be present at each stage of a trial and may replace a judge on a bench if he or she is unable to continue sitting. This measure assists the Tribunal in its efforts to complete its work by avoiding situations in which a specific trial would have to be restarted if one of the judges on the bench is unable to continue.

At the request of the Tribunal's President, the UN Secretary General has appointed two additional ad litem judges - Judge Stefan Trechsel from Switzerland and Judge Arpad Prandler from Hungary. Both Judges have been assigned to the Prlic et al. case, which will be presided over by Judge Jean-Claude Antonetti.

Judges Trechsel and Prandler will be sworn-in tomorrow in Courtroom I at 9 AM. To accommodate this, the trial against Milan Martic, a high-level political leader of the war-time Croatian Serb entity, will sit from 10:30 to 15:30. Next week this trial will continue in Courtroom II at 9:00.

In terms of the courtroom schedule for the days to come, the sentencing hearing against Ivica Rajic, former Commander in the Croatian Defence Council, will take place this Friday at 15:00 in Courtroom II.

The closing arguments against Bosnian Army officer Naser Oric will continue tomorrow at 14:15 in Courtroom III and, if necessary, will continue next week.

The trial against Yugoslav Army officers Mile Mrksic, Miroslav Radic and Veselin Slivancanin continues this Friday at 9:00 in courtroom III. Next week it will sit in Courtroom I at 14:15 on Monday and Tuesday and in courtroom III on Wednesday and Thursday at 9:00.

The trial against Momcilo Krajisnik, a former high-level leader of the Bosnian Serb political entity, will continue this week on Friday morning at 9:00 in courtroom II. The trial will sit next week Monday through Thursday at 9:00 in courtroom I.

A status conference against former high-level Commander of the Croatian Army, Ante Gotovina, will be held this Friday at 8:00 in Courtroom II.

There will be a status conference next Tuesday in the case against former Minister of Interior of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Ljube Boskoski and former ministry of Interior bodyguard, Johan Tarculovski in Courtroom II at 14:15.

There will also be a status conference in the case against a number of the highest-level leaders of the Bosnian Croat wartime entity, and one of the Republic of Croatia, the Prlic et al. case, next Wednesday at 9:00 in Courtroom III.

As a reminder, the Tribunal will be closed next Friday, 14 April and the following Monday, 17 April for Easter.

Office of the Prosecutor:

Anton Nikiforov, Advisor to the Prosecutor and acting Spokesperson of the Office of the Prosecutor, made the following statement:

I would just like to make a couple of comments on the meetings the Prosecutor had last week. As you all know she met European Union Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn and we just wanted to reiterate our gratitude to all support we were provided from the European Union in terms of conditionality of the states of the former Yugoslavia for cooperation with the Office of the Prosecutor. This meeting provided us with strong and clear support in terms of cooperation provided by Belgrade authorities and as a result of that we also received clear assurances from Prime Minister Kostunica in Belgrade for the delivery of Ratko Mladic by the end of April which is obviously very important not only for the Office of the Prosecutor but for the Tribunal in general.

Prosecutor also met with the French Justice Minister Pascal Clément who visited the Tribunal and had a very useful discussion with the Prosecutor in regard to the law of the Tribunal, legal proceedings in the ICTY and the future of the ICTY. France provided full support to the Tribunal through the visit of Minister Clément and through recent discussions in the United Nations Security Council.

Finally in regard to the change of the Office of the Prosecutor Spokesperson I would like to say the following: The Prosecutor has decided to reassign Florence Hartmann to other special project within the Office of the Prosecutor. We will not go into further details regarding this decision. The Prosecutor is grateful to Florence for all her past valuable and very special contribution to the activities and efforts of the Office of the Prosecutor.

Questions:

Asked to comment on a statement made by Michael Johnson, former Registrar of the BiH State Court, in which he stated that both Mladic and Karadzic could be tried in by the BiH Court, Chartier replied with the following:

• The suggestion that high level alleged perpetrators Mladic and Karadzic could be tried in BiH Courts is highly improbable.

• The Statute of the Tribunal explicitly provides that it has primacy over domestic courts in cases of concurrent jurisdiction. Moreover, in Resolution 1503 (2003) the Security Council specifically mandated the Tribunal concentrate on the prosecution and trial of the most senior leaders suspected of being most responsible for crimes within the Tribunal’s jurisdiction and, pursuant to Rule 11bis of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, only cases of low level or intermediate responsibility may be transferred to competent national jurisdictions. The Tribunal has begun to transfer lower level and intermediate accused to the Special War Crimes Chamber ("WCC") of the BiH court.

• Apart form these legal considerations, it is also unlikely that the WCC of the BiH court would have the capacity to hold the trials of these high level individuals due to security concerns in the region. The trial of such high accused in the region could have a destabilizing effect on a still fragile security situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

• Another noteworthy aspect is that several member states to, such as the United Kingdom, France and the USA to name a few, have made various statements in which they very clearly stated that the Tribunal could and should not close its doors without the arrest and the transfer to Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic to the Hague in order to be tried. The European Union also made an announcement to the same effect, in December 2005.

Asked to elaborate on the clear assurance that Kostunica had given to the Tribunal, Nikiforov replied that the Tribunal could not give any further information on this issue, except for the fact that same assurances were given not only to the Prosecutor but also to Commissioner Olli Rehn. He added that Belgrade had requested to work in quiet in order to achieve results without any media pressure.

Asked about the status of evidence handed over to the Defence in the Milosevic case,

Chartier replied that great caution should be exercised by the holders of the documents disclosed by the Office of the Prosecutor to the Defence. He stated that the mandate of the legal advisers to the accused had been terminated with the termination of the case but that that did not mean that the documents had become private documents. Some documents have a public character and are publicly accessible; but some others have been filed confidentially, are confidential and must remain so until a Trial Chamber orders otherwise, if ever.

Finally a journalist asked to comment on rumors that Dragomir Andan (director of the RS police) was removed from his position at the request of Carla Del Ponte, Nikiforov answered that he could not comment on this.

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