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

ICTY Weekly Press Briefing
Date: 09 February 2000
Time: 11:30 a.m.

REGISTRY AND CHAMBERS
Jim Landale, Spokesman for Registry and Chambers, made the following statement:

I thought that I’d start with some details of President Jorda’s recent trip to New York, where in the course of the three days that he was there he had 26 separate meetings, with among others, the Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, the Deputy Secretary-General, the President of the General Assembly, and representatives from the five permanent members of the Security Council, as well as representatives from the missions of Argentina, the Netherlands, Bangladesh, Canada and Portugal.

In addition, President Jorda met with the Head of the Office of Legal Affairs and his Deputy; the Principle Legal Officer for the Office of Legal Affairs, the President of the ACABQ (budgetary committee), the Under-Secretary-General for Management, the Under-Secretary-General for Human Resources, the Controller, the Director of Programme Planning and Budget Division, the Director of the Secretariat of the Security Council, and the Secretary of the ACABQ.

A number of issues were touched on at the meetings, including state cooperation with the Tribunal, the Expert Group Report, and the Tribunal’s budget. The meetings were all constructive and President Jorda received strong support for the Tribunal’s work from all quarters.

President Jorda will travel to Arusha on Saturday, along with the other judges of the Appeals Chamber, and is due to return on 23 February.

As you should have seen from our press release on Tuesday, Judge Fausto Pocar was sworn in as a judge of the ICTY to replace Judge Antonio Cassese. In addition, Judge David Hunt was elected as presiding Judge of Trial Chamber II.

Also, I can confirm that Milan Vujin has appealed the contempt of court ruling handed down by the Appeals Chamber on 31 January, although the actual notice of appeal has been filed confidentially.

The Kunarac and Kovac trial is still set for 20 March, despite a motion from Zoran Vukovic to have his case joined to the Kunarac and Kovac indictment. The Judges of Trial Chamber II are still considering that motion. A pre-trial hearing has been set for 2 March.

We have copies of the parties’ appeal briefs in the Aleksovski appeal for those who don’t already have a copy.

OFFICE OF THE PROSECUTOR
Paul Risley, Spokesman for the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP), made the following statement:

The Prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte is in Arusha today. She is expected to leave for Kigali later today or tomorrow.

Much of her schedule will be determined once she arrives in Kigali, however, the Barayagwiza appeal will be heard on the 22 February so she will be in Arusha by then.

Graham Blewitt, The Deputy Prosecutor made no statement.

QUESTIONS:

• Asked for his opinion on the Expert Group Report findings that the expected life of the Tribunal was another 10 years, Blewitt replied that, when the OTP met with the Group of Experts, they gave an opinion firstly on how long it would take to complete the investigations and secondly on how long it would take to complete the trials.

It was the view of the OTP that another 36 investigations, involving 150 people remained to be completed, hopefully by 2004, Blewitt said. The only exception to that was the investigation into the KLA. This was because these particular investigations were more complicated, due to the fact that at the moment the OTP had little access to the Serb victims and Serb authorities who might be able to assist in the progression of the case, he added.

If the 36 investigations led to indictments and the apprehension of those 150 suspects and if joint trials were held, it was the opinion of the OTP that it would take about 10 years to complete those particular trials.

If all of the accused on one indictment were not apprehended at the same time, this forced the Tribunal to have multiple trials on one indictment and these things could not be predicted, he concluded.

• Asked whether the Dutch authorities would make similar arrangements to the German Government, (in the light of the fact that the Standing Committee of Justice of the Dutch Parliament was due to debate today the possible deportation of hundreds of survivors of Srebrenica massacre), to enable refugees that the OTP required as witnesses to stay in the Netherlands, Blewitt replied that the OTP had witnesses who were refugees from the conflict in the Netherlands as in most European countries.

He added that arrangements were in place to grant those witnesses special treatment to ensure they were not repatriated if repatriation was going to expose them to danger.

He was not aware that any witnesses in Holland were going to be forcefully repatriated. If that was the case, the OTP would make separate representations in respect of the witnesses involved, he concluded.

• Asked whether the Prosecutor intended to attempt to visit Belgrade, Blewitt replied that the Prosecutor was hoping to go to Belgrade at some stage, however, the date was not yet determined. The Prosecutor’s schedule was very full between now and June. An application for a visa would be made once time for a visit arose.

• Asked for his opinion on reports seen in Albanian papers in Kosovo claiming that a separate Tribunal was to be set up under the auspices of the ICTY for Kosovo, Blewitt replied that, he was aware of a initiative to create courts to target lower level perpetrators under the auspices of UNMIK. The OTP would work with UNMIK in order to provide whatever expertise the Tribunal could, on issues such as providing Tribunal evidence and witnesses. Any local prosecution would be done in cooperation with the Tribunal and the Tribunal would have an interest in watching those proceedings, he added.

He concluded however that there was no other court being set up.

• Asked for a comment on the Pavle Bulatovic shooting, Blewitt replied that he could only repeat what he had said on Monday. Bulatovic had been under investigation by the OTP but was not the subject of a sealed indictment, he added. The investigation covered Kosovo and other things he did not wish to elaborate on. He added that Bulatovic would not be indicted. However, if an indictment came forward in relation to particular investigations that he was connected to, he could be mentioned in those indictments as a co-offender, which had already happened in existing indictments, he said.

• Asked whether there was any more information on the KLA investigation, Blewitt replied that there was not much, only that the OTP had information that the KLA had committed crimes that fell under the jurisdiction of the Tribunal. Consistent with its mandate, the Tribunal would investigate all parties to a conflict where crimes had been committed, he concluded.

• Asked for clarification of the fact that the OTP could not contact many of the victims of these crimes, Blewitt replied that most of the victims had fled to Serbia and other places. The OTP had no access to those witnesses and victims in Serbia, however it was trying to gain access to them in other ways, he said. The Belgrade authorities would also have details of what the KLA activities were from their own intelligence and resources and the OTP wished to gain access to that information. However until the OTP gained access it would be very difficult to pursue the investigation to the point where they could bring indictments.

Continuing, Blewitt said that it was very much like the situation encountered in the early days with the Republika Srpska. Prior to the Dayton Agreement the Tribunal had no access to Republika Srpska and it was very difficult to get access to victims and witnesses in that region. This did improve after Dayton, when indictments were issued in which Serbs were the victims.

• Asked whether the OTP planned to take any action following the complaint handed to them by the Mothers of Srebrenica in a meeting on Friday, Blewitt replied that he had not read the complaint and was not present at that meeting, however, he said that he felt that that some common sense had to be exercised. It might be theoretically possible for allegations to be made that someone was involved in the commission of war crimes falling under the Tribunal’s jurisdiction, however to suggest that the UN in it’s role as a peace-keeper trying to bring about peace in the former Yugoslavia, in particular Bosnia, had motives which would amount to crimes over which the Tribunal had jurisdiction was unrealistic. He added that, whilst it might be possible to present an argument in theory that someone had committed a crime, he believed it to be a nonsense when you looked at the activities of the people who were named in the complaint.

He concluded that the OTP would not be taking that particular complaint seriously.

• Asked whether the OTP was prepared to let the authorities of Croatia investigate operations "Flash" and "Storm", Blewitt replied that his initial response to this question was that it would be unlikely. He added however that there was now a new regime in Croatia with all the indications being that the new government would cooperate fully with the Tribunal and he hoped that would be the case.

• Asked whether there had been any contacts between the new government and the Tribunal, Blewitt replied that there had not been apart from some correspondence. The liaison office in Zagreb had been in touch with various ministries, however no high level approaches had been made as the OTP was waiting for the election to be completed on Monday. They were very pleased to see President Mesic win the election and there would be a visit by the Prosecutor to Zagreb at the soonest possible opportunity bearing in mind that she would be in Africa for most this month and that she had other trips planned for March. It was possible that the earliest she could go there was early April, which was consistent with allowing the new government to get itself operational and become familiar with all the issues involving the Tribunal. A meeting at around that time could be very productive, he concluded.

• Asked whether there was a trial date set for the Krstic case, Landale replied that there was no date set yet and that no scheduling order had been received. However, the date of March 13 had been specified in an order as a ‘target date’ for the beginning of the trial. This could change, however, he added.

• Asked whether there was a date set for Blaskic, Landale replied that there was nothing confirmed yet and no scheduling order had been filed, but it looked like it would be sometime at the end of this month.

• Asked whether the OTP planned to appeal the Vujin contempt decision, Blewitt replied that when you looked at the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, there was no was no provision for such an appeal from the decision of the Appeals Chamber and he was not aware of any decision on the part of the OTP to launch any appeal.

• Asked how far the Prosecution had gone in deciding whether they would appeal in the Jelesic case, Blewitt replied that the final determination was delayed until an English copy of the judgement was received some weeks ago. He added that it was an active issue and that a decision would be made soon as there was a deadline.

• Asked whether the OTP still felt, as they said in their notice of appeal, that the judgement had raised fundamental questions of law, Blewitt replied that there were fundamental questions of law. The framing of the Prosecution’s appeal, the possible outcome of an appeal and whether or not a particular case was the best case in which to raise this particular question or whether it was better to wait for another case which might have different factual circumstances which might influence the outcome of the appeal, were all considerations to take into account. The grounds of appeal had been formulated and the OTP was going through some policy issues rather than legal issues and an answer would be given in the near future, he said.