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1 Friday, 23 September 2005
2 [Status Conference]
3 [Open session]
4 [The appellants entered court]
5 --- Upon commencing at 2:16 p.m.
6 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: [Microphone not activated].
7 Yes, Mr. Registrar, will you please call the case today.
8 THE REGISTRAR: Good afternoon, Your Honour. This is Case Number
9 IT-02-60-A, the Prosecutor versus Vidoje Blagojevic and Dragan Jokic.
10 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Well, I welcome you all to this second Status
11 Conference. I would like to begin by checking in the usual way that the
12 equipment is functioning.
13 Gentlemen, can you hear me, Mr. Jokic and Mr. Blagojevic?
14 THE APPELLANT JOKIC: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I can hear
15 you.
16 THE APPELLANT BLAGOJEVIC: [Interpretation] Yes, I can hear you.
17 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: All the counsel can also hear me?
18 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
19 MR. DOMAZET: [Microphone not activated].
20 MS. SINATRA: Your Honour, I can't hear either. Maybe it's this
21 location, or maybe I've forgotten how to work the machinery.
22 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Well, Ms. Sinatra, if it's any comfort, I
23 have to learn back the whole process anew every time I take my seat. Now
24 then, may we have the appearances. There are three appeals:
25 Mr. Blagojevic first. Who is appearing for Mr. Blagojevic? The last time
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1 it was Mr. Domazet.
2 MS. SINATRA: Your Honour, I don't wish to speak for Mr. Domazet,
3 but he is not being able to hear the interpretation and he can't
4 understand what you're saying at the moment. He does speak English, but
5 he prefers to have the French interpretation.
6 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Is there a problem, Mr. Registrar?
7 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]
8 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: You have requested help.
9 Help is coming.
10 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]
11 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Can we await the technician? He is coming, I
12 am told.
13 THE REGISTRAR: Test, test. This is a test.
14 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Mr. Domazet, can you hear me now?
15 MR. DOMAZET: Yes, yes, yes.
16 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Well, Mr. Domazet, we were on the item
17 relating to appearances. Ms. Sinatra volunteered the announcement that
18 you were still appearing for Mr. Blagojevic. Is that correct?
19 MR. DOMAZET: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour. Yes, that's quite
20 right. My name is Vladimir Domazet, I am appearing on behalf of
21 Mr. Blagojevic, Vidoje.
22 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Ms. Sinatra, you are appearing for Mr. Jokic?
23 MS. SINATRA: Yes, Your Honour, but I have a gigantic staff that
24 is only making this one appearance. We are minus Mr. Staker now, but we
25 have Ms. Chrissa Loukas as co-counsel. We have Alfredo Strippoli as our
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1 legal assistant.
2 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Yes.
3 MS. SINATRA: And we have Ms. Aurora Bewicke as our intern.
4 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Ms. Aurora Bewicke, yes.
5 MS. SINATRA: And I'm Cynthia Sinatra, for Mr. Jokic.
6 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Yes, yes. Prosecution. Who is appearing for
7 the Prosecution?
8 MR. FARRELL: Good afternoon, Your Honour. Good afternoon to my
9 learned colleagues. Norman Farrell, Mr. Milbert Shin, and Janet Stewart
10 appearing for the Prosecution. Thank you.
11 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: My first duty is to express to Ms. Sinatra
12 the deepest sympathy of the Court on a recent mishap to her daughter, and
13 we hope that that is now passed and that we can look to the future.
14 MS. SINATRA: Thank you very much, Your Honour.
15 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Now, this is the second Status Conference.
16 The first one was held, I believe, on the 17th of June. As we know, there
17 are two main purposes of a Status Conference. They are suggested by Rule
18 65 bis of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the Tribunal. And the
19 object is to allow the appellants to express concerns relating to the
20 appeal and the detention conditions, and also to update the appellants
21 with respect to the status of the case.
22 Now, I will begin by noting, as I have said, that there are three
23 appeals. First, an appeal by Mr. Jokic; second, an appeal by
24 Mr. Blagojevic; and third, an appeal by the Prosecution. Perhaps I should
25 begin by noting that in the appeal by the Prosecution the pleading process
Page 36
1 is practically complete. The Prosecution filed its reply brief on the 5th
2 of July. What happened was that thereafter the Prosecution was granted
3 leave to amend its notice of appeal and Mr. Blagojevic was also permitted
4 to file additional submissions. He did so and requested time. Then the
5 Prosecution sought to strike out some part of his additional submissions,
6 and that has resulted in the present situation, which is that we are
7 awaiting Mr. Blagojevic's response to the motion to strike out the
8 additional submissions, the Prosecution's motion to strike out additional
9 submissions of Mr. Blagojevic, and we hope to have his response to the
10 Prosecution's motion I think today. Is that right?
11 Then it will be for the Appeals Chamber to decide on the motion in
12 the normal way.
13 Then we have a second cause for delay. This is that
14 Mr. Blagojevic has filed on the 19th of September a motion for an
15 extension of time. Yesterday the Prosecution filed a response to this
16 motion, opposing the suggested extension. Mr. Blagojevic is to reply on
17 Monday coming. So thereafter we will deal with that motion as quickly as
18 possible.
19 And the third reason for some delay in the appeal process is this,
20 that Mr. Jokic has on his part filed a request to amend his notice of
21 appeal. He filed that on the 6th of September. The Prosecution filed its
22 response to that request to amend the notice of appeal on the 16th of
23 September, and this will also be considered by the Appeals Chamber in its
24 full formation. I can't say that this appeal is the stalest that I've
25 seen. The judgement was rendered in January this year. It is too early,
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1 I think - the pleading process has not run its full course - too early to
2 prognosticate as to when the appeals might be heard. All I can say is
3 they will be heard as soon as possible after the pleading process is over.
4 For now, all I can do is to invite the parties to adhere as closely as
5 they can to the pleading procedures prescribed by the Rules so that this
6 matter would be heard eventually as soon as possible.
7 Now, if there are any comments on that or on the conditions of
8 detention of the appellants, counsel will let me know. Yes.
9 MS. SINATRA: Your Honour, as far as the conditions of detention
10 are, I think Mr. Jokic has no problems with his detention at this time.
11 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Thank you.
12 Mr. Domazet.
13 MR. DOMAZET: [Interpretation] Your Honour, it's the same for
14 Mr. Blagojevic with regard to his detention. But there are other matters
15 that we might raise. May I -- may I raise these matters now?
16 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Of course. The only thing that I may point
17 out is that on the last occasion we had a full discussion of the Drina
18 Corps collection and related matters, and I think the transcripts on that
19 occasion ran to some 32 pages, which is quite substantial for a sitting of
20 this kind. I hope we don't repeat that, but do go ahead by all means,
21 Mr. Domazet.
22 MR. DOMAZET: [Interpretation] No, Your Honour, I will not raise
23 the matter of the Drina collection, Drina Corps collection. I would like
24 to raise other matters, other problems, related to the situation of my
25 client. I checked all the transcripts related to the judgement, but I'm
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1 faced with a major problem. As for the Status Conference of 27 March
2 2003, there was a closed session announced by Judge Schomburg during that
3 status conference, Judge Schomburg being the Presiding Judge at the
4 conference at that time, but the problem is that we do not have a
5 transcript of this session, and according to what my client told me, this
6 hearing is very important. He therefore insists that this transcript be
7 uncovered but I was not able to access this transcript. It's page 201
8 where the open part of the Status Conference comes to an end and then
9 Judge Schomburg announces that ten minutes later the hearing will resume
10 in closed session. But although Mr. Blagojevic told me that he remembers
11 perfectly that that hearing took place, we don't have -- find any
12 transcripts. And the next page in the case of 200 -- page 202 is from the
13 5th of May, 2003, and that is to say the next pre-trial conference.
14 Therefore, I'm not in a position to find out what happened with
15 that particular transcript. And since it's one of our grounds of appeal,
16 well, the situation is that I'm not in a position to find this transcript.
17 [In English] One other thing. I should like to -- if we can go to
18 closed session.
19 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Any objection?
20 MR. FARRELL: No, Your Honour.
21 [Private session]
22 (redacted)
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5 [Open session]
6 THE REGISTRAR: We are in open session, Your Honour.
7 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Well, then we resume in open session. That
8 is said for the record. Will there be any other intervention by counsel
9 for the appellants?
10 MS. SINATRA: Yes, Your Honour. I just wanted to express my
11 appreciation for Mr. Farrell, the Prosecution's, and the Chamber's
12 compassion during the incident where my daughter has broken her back. And
13 as we speak, Your Honour, hurricane Rita, the eye is going to go over my
14 home tonight at midnight, so I feel like Charlie Brown with a little cloud
15 walking over my head.
16 But we just have a few matters to address. One is that
17 Mr. Farrell has handed us a gigantic index relating to the EDS system
18 again, and Mr. Farrell has also stated that this index, of course, is not
19 complete and can't be relied upon. But I covered this issue, I think
20 pretty extensively, during the last Status Conference, and the person who
21 has been working with the EDS system is my legal assistant, Mr. Strippoli,
22 and if the court will indulge us, may Mr. Strippoli address the Court on
23 this issue. Thank you.
24 MR. STRIPPOLI: Your Honour, this Defence is currently
25 experiencing some difficulties in reviewing the documents made available
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1 to us by the Prosecution under the Drina Corps collection. These
2 difficulties are due to the fact that the EDS system allows the user to
3 carry out targeted searches within the collection, but doesn't allow to
4 carry out a comprehensive and systemic review of all the documents
5 contained in the collection.
6 We appreciate the steps taken by the Prosecution in particular to
7 make this list, this index, available to us and to make also some
8 translated documents available to us. I would like to underline that
9 these translated documents constitute just a minimum part of the documents
10 present in the collection. We're talking about 115 out of almost 2.000
11 documents. In any case, and since most of the documents are not
12 translated and no one in our Defence team understands B/C/S, we would like
13 to be in a position to have Mr. Jokic review each and every document
14 contained in the Drina Corps collection so that he can indicate to counsel
15 which ones he thinks are relevant to his case. And in order to be in a
16 position to do so, we would like to kindly ask the Prosecution to make all
17 the documents contained in the Drina Corps collection available to us on a
18 CD-ROM that we can deliver to the UNDU so that Mr. Jokic can review them.
19 Thank you, Your Honour.
20 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Any difficulties with that request,
21 Mr. Farrell?
22 MR. FARRELL: There may be, Your Honour. But if I can respond
23 first to some of the other comments on the record. Ms. Sinatra's comments
24 that we have filed an index that's not complete and cannot be relied upon,
25 if that's the case, I'm happy to take it back, actually, and if they'd
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1 like to give it to me after this session, I'd be happy to receive it,
2 thank you.
3 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: You weren't suggesting that, were you?
4 MS. SINATRA: Your Honour, if I have offended Mr. Farrell in any
5 way, I would like to apologise, because in his status report he says that
6 I have offended him in some manner. I really think that I am just asking
7 for disclosure of materials, that I would like to offer this to
8 Mr. Farrell: The war map that we have been discussing, you have done
9 everything in your power to abide by our request and I really appreciate
10 it. The fact that neither one of us have understood exactly what the war
11 map is makes it impossible to proceed on that issue, and I thank you for
12 your cooperation.
13 And if I have offended you in any way in any of my motions or any
14 of my requests, please accept my humble apology.
15 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: You have the gracious apology before you,
16 Mr. Farrell. What do you say to that?
17 MR. FARRELL: Well, certainly the Prosecution appreciates the kind
18 words of Ms. Sinatra, but it's the allegation of violation of Rule 68 when
19 the document was in the possession of the Defence that we take issue with,
20 not the specific matter of whether or not I am in any way personally
21 offended. I take no issue with that.
22 With respect to the index, as I think is evident from the status
23 report, it doesn't list comprehensively every single word or every single
24 explanation of what the documents are; it's an attempt to provide an
25 identifier from which they can do further reviews. In relation to the
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1 other comments by Mr. Strippoli, the fact that there is only a minimal
2 part of the documents translated, once again I don't think there is any
3 insinuation, but there is certainly no obligation on the Prosecution to
4 translate documents for the Defence. They, like the Prosecution, have to
5 review the documents in B/C/S and there are language assistants available
6 to the Defence through OLAD who can review them as well as we do with our
7 language assistants.
8 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: What do you say about Mr. Strippoli's
9 suggestion that the material might be handed over to his client?
10 MR. FARRELL: Well, I'd like to take a look at that and, if you
11 don't mind, respond in writing to that request. I would like to determine
12 what the practice and procedure is, what the impact is as to whether or
13 not this can be done, because every other, I'm sure, appellant or accused
14 may ask for the same. I don't know whether it's possible specifically,
15 and I also am not sure what the obligations are of the Prosecution under
16 Rule 68(ii). If it is possible and if we can do it without much
17 difficulty, I will look into doing it, but I would like to make it clear
18 that the Prosecution is not -- it's not the Prosecution's intention to
19 provide CD-ROMs and material which have met the disclosure obligation
20 under 68(ii). The requirement is it's made accessible to the Defence.
21 They, like the Prosecution, can use a language assistant to review it and
22 bring it to the attention of their client. But I certainly will, in this
23 case, attempt to see if we can provide some assistance, though I am not,
24 at this point in time, in a position to say whether we will.
25 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Will you be in a position to disclose your
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1 ultimate situation to Ms. Sinatra within, say, a stated time?
2 MR. FARRELL: I think we can probably do it by next week sometime.
3 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: What about that?
4 MS. SINATRA: Well, Your Honour, of course I didn't want to ask
5 for an extension of time, and I believe that the Drina Corps collection
6 does fall within the Rule 115 and not the evidence that was presented at
7 trial, so as soon as they can provide it to us, we would most happily
8 receive it.
9 I also want to say that Mr. Farrell keeps referring to the fact
10 that we can have translation assistants, interpretation assistants. The
11 Defence does not have an on-staff interpreter. We rely on our
12 applications to the CLSS department at the Tribunal to interpret and
13 translate for us, and we have even applied for the CLSS to interpret our
14 rough draft of our appeal brief -- translate it, excuse me -- so that we
15 can go over it with Mr. Jokic, and they refuse. We cannot get any
16 translations through the CLSS department. So we really have -- we are at
17 the mercy of the Prosecution. When they have things translated, if we're
18 allowed to have them, then that's the only way we have to review these
19 documents and any and all collections that are in B/C/S.
20 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Well, you're raising now a translation
21 problem --
22 MS. SINATRA: Yes, Your Honour.
23 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: -- in addition to the problems you originally
24 raise, which concern the convenient use by you of the index of material
25 which Mr. Farrell has given to you. I don't know what is my reaction to
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1 your translation problems. Would you want thousands of pages translated?
2 MS. SINATRA: No, Your Honour. I think what Mr. Strippoli and I
3 are both asking for is we be given the Drina Corps collection on CD. Then
4 Mr. Jokic, who speaks B/C/S and knows what documents would be relevant to
5 his Defence, can tell us. And then at that point we can try to get CLSS
6 to translate those documents for us.
7 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Well, Mr. Farrell says within a week he
8 should be able to tell you of his definitive position on that.
9 MS. SINATRA: That's more than acceptable. Thank you, Your
10 Honour.
11 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Very good. Thank you.
12 MR. FARRELL: Thank you.
13 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Well, then, will there be any other
14 representations by either side of the aisle?
15 MR. FARRELL: Not from the Prosecution, thank you.
16 MR. DOMAZET: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I'd like to raise two
17 matters. You stated with regard to the motion for extension of time that
18 I can respond to the motion of the Prosecutor by Monday, and I will do so.
19 I will file my response. But I'm faced with other difficulties. You said
20 that you were expecting my response to the other motion of the Prosecutor
21 today.
22 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: [Previous translation continues]...
23 MR. DOMAZET: [Interpretation] Unfortunately, because of the
24 problems I'm faced with with the -- because for the time being I do not
25 have a legal assistant and I have not received the decision of the
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1 Registry as yet with regard to a new assistant being assigned to me, and
2 since I'm always here and there, I was wondering, if at all possible, if I
3 would be allowed to file that response on Monday as well.
4 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Instead of today?
5 MR. DOMAZET: Yes.
6 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Mr. Farrell, do you have any objections to
7 that?
8 MR. FARRELL: None whatsoever.
9 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Well, that is agreed.
10 MR. DOMAZET: Thank you, Your Honour. Thank you.
11 JUDGE SHAHABUDDEEN: Okay.
12 Any other remarks? Thank you. I would then take the adjournment
13 and thank you all for coming and for participating in this very useful
14 session. Thank you.
15 --- Whereupon the Status Conference
16 adjourned at 2:58 p.m.
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