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

ICTY Weekly Press Briefing
Date: 06 February 2002
Time: 11.15 a.m.

First, you all should have received Trial Chamber III’s Order on the Commencement of Trial dated 4 February and the related press release. If for some reason you have not, you can pick up a copy of both those documents after the briefing.

On 1 February, a scheduling order was filed in the Halilovic case ordering that a status conference to be held on Friday 12 April at 12.30 pm.

On 5 February, a scheduling order in the Martinovic and Naletilic case was filed by Trial Chamber I. The Trial Chamber ordered that:

1. The provisional Defence filings pursuant to Rule 65 ter (G) of the Rules shall be filed with the Chamber as of 1 March 2002. These filings shall comprise: A list of witnesses with a summary of their respective testimony as well as an indication as to which provision of the Rules could be relied upon to receive their evidence; a separate list of expert witnesses with the indication as to when their report was ready (or is meant to be ready) and when it was made available (or planned to be made available) to the prosecution; a list of exhibits with a brief description of their respective nature and contents;

2. The Pre-Defence Conference shall be held on 20 March 2002, at a time and in a courtroom to be indicated by the Registry;

3. The Defence case shall commence on 25 March 2002, at a time and in a courtroom to be indicated by the Registry;

4. Depositions pursuant to Rule 71 of the rules, if any, shall be taken at a later stage of the Defence case, in accordance with and after further consultation of the parties.

Finally a reminder that the Vasiljevic trial is due to resume on 13 February 2002.

QUESTIONS:

• Asked whether Milosevic was seeing any lawyers at the moment, Landale replied that he was. Mr. Ognjanovic was visiting Mr. Milosevic today, he said.

• Asked whether Mr. Milosevic’s wife had been visiting the Detention Unit, Landale replied that she would be visiting for most of this week.

• Asked whether any other lawyers had asked to meet with Mr. Milosevic running up to the trial, Landale replied that there had not been as far as he knew. He added that he would look into it.

• Asked whether, given that the Serbian Socialist Party had indicated that they would like to attend the Milosevic trial, they needed to accredit themselves, Landale replied that as far as he understood, the Tribunal had received an expression of interest to attend the trial from Milosevic’s party. He added that there was no formal accreditation procedure for this kind of request. It was a decision to be taken at the discretion of the Registrar, given the limited space available in the public gallery as to how those seats were filled above and beyond seats that were set aside for media representatives.

• Asked whether any human rights organisations such as Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International had requested to attend the trial and how they would go about getting seats, Landale replied that he concentrated on the media aspect of seat allocation, but he would look into it. Again it was the decision to be taken by the Registrar.

• Asked whether this would mean that those organisations would be allocated reserved seats, Landale replied that he would have to check. He added that there was great interest in the start of this trial, not just from the media but also from diplomatic representatives and from other interested parties. There was limited space available so a decision had to be taken as to how to fill those seats. The Registrar would look at all of the applications and make a decision based on them.

• Asked whether Mira Markovic had requested to attend the beginning of the trial, Landale added that he was not aware of any request from her.

• Asked whether Mr. Milosevic had filed anything recently, Landale replied that he had not as far as he was aware at this point.

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