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

ICTY Weekly Press Briefing
Date: 17.07.2002
Time: 12:00 p.m.

REGISTRY AND CHAMBERS

Today is the World Day for International Justice. We are very proud of being at the service of international law, and we believe that the best way to celebrate this day is by carrying on our work with clear determination and in full transparency.

In this regard, I would like to state as strongly as possible that persons reporting, as I have seen over the past two days, that the Tribunal has established a system through which its accused would be authorised to receive up to 10% of defence costs as compensation for their custody and/or in order to support their family, are at the very least ill-informed. There is no such kick-back system in place at the Tribunal, for obvious reasons. It has never been contemplated, it has never been established, and it never will be.

In the case The Prosecutor v. Nikola Sainovic and Dragoljub Ojdanic, the Bench of the Appeals Chamber has granted the Prosecution leave to appeal against the provisional release Decision of 26 June.

Next Tuesday, the President, the Prosecutor and the Registrar will be in New York. The President and the Prosecutor have been invited to appear before the UN Security Council to discuss the Report, made public two weeks ago, on the Judicial Status of the Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the Prospects for Referring Certain Cases to National Courts.

As previously announced, on Thursday and Friday of last week the Judges held their regular summer Plenary Session. A press release will be issued in due course, providing you with more details on the significant reforms adopted with the view of strengthening the position of Defence Counsels appearing before the ICTY.

On-going trials continue as scheduled in the Milosevic, Galic, Stakic, Simic and others, Brdjanin and Talic, and Naletilic and Martinovic cases. In the Naletilic and Martinovic case, you will have no doubt noticed that the Defence case opened yesterday.

Besides the on-going trials, I would like to mention a number of additional proceedings to take place in the two coming days:

• On Thursday at 2.15 p.m. in courtroom III, there will be a status conference in the case The Prosecutor v. Enver Hadzihasanovic, Mehmed Alagic and Amir Kubura. To be discussed among other topics is a request by Enver Hadzihasanovic and Amir Kubura to change their conditions of provisional release, namely to be authorised to travel beyond the limits of Sarajevo in order to visit family members and to assist in the preparation of their defence cases.
• On Friday, in courtroom I, at 2.15 p.m., a status conference will be held in the case The Prosecutor v. Vidoje Blagojevic, Dragan Obrenovic, Dragan Jokic and Momir Nikolic; this will be followed by a hearing on the motion for provisional release filed by Dragan Obrenovic on 11 June and on an expected motion for provisional release to be filed by Vidoje Blagojevic. The Defence for Vidoje Blagojevic informed the Chamber earlier this week that a provisional release motion is about to be filed. This application brings up to nine the number of accused currently seeking provisional release. One of the applications filed is by Momcilo Gruban, I can now tell you that a Decision on his provisional release is expected to be issued later today. Another of the accused seeking provisional release is Mile Mrksic. His motion will be considered on Friday afternoon at 4.15 p.m.

• In the cases relating to the Omarska and Keraterm Camps, following the Prosecution’s motion for joinder, on 16 July Trial Chamber III ordered the Prosecution to file further clarifications on the charges, either new or existing.
• In the case The Prosecutor v. Milomir Stakic, on 10 July, Trial Chamber II dismissed a confidential motion by the Defence to exclude the testimony of Mevludin Sejmenovic.
• In the case The Prosecutor v. Momcilo Krajisnik and Biljlana Plavsic, on 12 July, Trial Chamber III denied the Prosecution’s application for an appeal against its Decision of 18 June to exclude evidence and to limit the scope of the trial.

Firstly, with regard to the cases in front of the Appeals Chamber:

• In the case The Prosecutor v. Radoslav Brdjanin and Momir Talic, on 15 July the Prosecution filed its response to the submissions by Jonathan Randal’s lawyers in support of their appeal against the Decision to compel him to appear as a witness. Meanwhile, the Bench that will consider the merits of this appeal has been constituted as follows: Judge Jorda, presiding, Judge Shahabuddeen, Judge Güney, Judge Gunawardana and Judge Meron.

With regard to cases in front of a Trial Chamber:

• In the case The Prosecutor v. Stanislav Galic, the Defence is seeking leave to appeal against the Trial Chamber’s Decision of 3 July not to challenge the qualification as expert-witnesses of two OTP employees.
• In the case The Prosecutor v. Blagojevic and others, on 16 July, the Prosecution filed a consolidated response to Defence motions challenging the form of the Indictment.
• In the case The Prosecutor v. Mile Mrskic, on 12 July, the defendant filed a motion challenging alleged defects in the form of the Indictment.
• In the case The Prosecutor against Slobodan Milosevic, we have received two Prosecution filings:

Finally, I am glad to inform you that the following translations into French of documents initially issued in English are now available:

As usual, copies of most of the documents that have been mentioned have been prepared for you. Copies of others can be requested from us, the only condition being for you to be patient.

I am now happy to turn the floor over to the Office of the Prosecutor.

The Prosecutor will visit Belgrade on Friday. It will be a short working visit relating to issues of cooperation and will last for only a few hours.

• Asked for further elaboration, concerning the document mentioned relating to an application by the Prosecution for an order directing the FRY to produce documents, Hartmann said that this document highlighted the problems the OTP faced when requesting specific documents from Belgrade. It explained why, in certain cases, the OTP had to continually speak on the subject of cooperation, despite the many public statements on the part of the Yugoslav authorities and other authorities in the former Yugoslavia, that they were cooperating with the Tribunal.

• More specifically, Hartmann added that the OTP had requested the statement Mr. Milosevic gave when he was arrested in April 2001 in Belgrade. She added that Milosevic’s lawyer had given large extracts of the statement to the public and media. The statement was published in the former Yugoslavia and all over the world and related to the support Milosevic had given to the Bosnian and Croatian Serbs during the war. It was something that the OTP was interested in and the OTP had requested a copy of the official statement from the authorities since it did not want to have to rely on press articles. The OTP did not receive any answer from Belgrade and the statement was not provided. This is why the OTP was now asking for Trial Chamber support.

• Asked whether the motion related to one particular document, Hartmann replied that the OTP faced this kind of problem constantly. This particular case led to this request. The OTP had requested the Chamber to help with this particular problem. Prior to this motion, the OTP had made constant requests to the authorities, these were refused. This was a document that had been presented before a court in Belgrade, it was an example of the kind of document the OTP was looking for, she concluded.

• A journalist stated that the document was broadly used in the Morten Torkildsen expert report. Asked whether this meant that he had also not received the statement. Hartmann replied that the OTP wanted to use official documents in the trial and not press articles. The document existed and it was something the OTP wished to receive.

• Asked to confirm whether or not Torkildsen had seen the actual statement, Hartmann replied that Torkildsen had written an expert report about the Milosevic trial. The OTP wanted the document to be provided to them to be used in the trial. The document could not fall under any special state secret act as it had already been given to the press.

• Chartier added that from a procedural standpoint, a distinction had to be made between an investigator accessing a document and being authorised to read and quote from it and the Prosecution getting, through official channels, a copy of a document. There was a difference between an expert report and a document likely to be tendered in court as an exhibit, he added.

• Asked who was refusing to give the document to the OTP, Hartmann replied that all the details were in the motion. The decision had been taken by the National Council for Cooperation. All the answers could be found in the motion, she concluded.

• Asked for a general impression on how good the cooperation was, as far as documents were concerned, from the Council for cooperation, Hartmann replied that due to the Prosecutor’s upcoming visit to Belgrade, she would not answer this question now. Cooperation was not going very well, but she did not want to give any details or qualify how it was going. It was better to allow the Prosecutor to give a summary of this after her visit.

• Asked for further elements of the agenda of the Prosecutor’s visit, Hartmann replied that it was a very short visit and she would not give details apart from the fact that the Prosecutor would meet with officials at the Federal level and at the level of the Government of Serbia.

• Asked how it was possible that Mr. Kastratovic, the lawyer requested by Mr. Martic to defend him, had been assigned by the Registrar, Chartier replied that Mr. Kastratovic had never been assigned to Mr. Martic and that another lawyer, Mr. Knoops, had been assigned to him.

• A journalist stated that both Mr. Knoops and Mr. Martic had filed requests for Martic’s provisional release despite the fact that Martic had complained about Knoops filing anything on his behalf. Asked whether Martic was now being defended by nobody and how would this situation would be resolved, Chartier replied that there were problems with the requested appointment of a specific lawyer. Awaiting a solution to this problem, and in order to protect the rights of the accused to be defended and represented in proceedings before the Tribunal, Knoops had been assigned to him. A few weeks ago the Trial Chamber dealing with this case had ordered that all the parties including the lawyer requested by Martic, the assigned defence lawyer and the registry to make submissions to the Trial Chamber to clear up the matter. As long as a Decision had not been taken everything stood as it was.

• Asked why Knoops was filing requests on his behalf, Chartier replied that it was because he was the assigned lawyer and he was fully entitled to do so. He was not aware that Martic ever filed any complaint in writing asking not to be defended by this defence lawyer.

• Asked for a copy of the 92 bis statement submitted today in court, Chartier replied that Rule 92 bis statements were subject to specific procedure. So far, this procedure had been that the statements would be made public on two conditions, that they had been submitted and that the witness had appeared in court. In this case the second condition could not be met so he would have to check how the Registry would deal with it.

• Asked to confirm that all documents not filed under seal should be public, Chartier replied that this was a simplistic representation of the situation, and that he would be happy to discuss the matter further after the briefing.