⁸

Friday, 29 June 2001

[Status Conference]

(Open session)

[The accused entered court]

--- Upon commencing at 11.03 a.m.

JUDGE HUNT: Call the case, please.

THE REGISTRAR: Case number IT-01-43-PT, the Prosecutor versus Dragan Obrenovic.

JUDGE HUNT: Appearances, please, for the Prosecution, Mr. McCloskey.

MR. McCLOSKEY: Good morning, Your Honour. My name is Peter McCloskey for the prosecution, and with me today are Janet Stewart and Mark Vlasic.

JUDGE HUNT: For the accused.

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

JUDGE HUNT: I'm afraid you'll have to get used to the technology. There is a button there that you press to turn your microphone on. That's it.

MR. WILSON: Thank you, Your Honour. I will remember that, Your Honour. My name is David Eugene Wilson. I am a lawyer from Seattle, Washington, and it's an honour for me to appear this morning before this Tribunal on behalf of the Defence of Mr. Dragan Obrenovic.

JUDGE HUNT: Welcome to the Tribunal, Mr. Wilson. Now, Mr. Obrenovic, are you able to hear the proceedings in a language which you can understand? ⁹

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I can indeed.

JUDGE HUNT: Thank you very much. Sit down, please, sir. This is a Status Conference called in accordance with the provisions of Rule 65 bis, and within the time limited by that rule. Is there anything that the Prosecution wants to raise, first of all?

MR. McCLOSKEY: Nothing in particular, Your Honour. We have been able to provide counsel recently with the confirmation materials and have provided him some additional materials. And we will be able to be working now for the next few weeks, with the end of the Krstic trial, on providing many more materials for him for his review of this very vast amount of materials, including, we hope next week to provide him with a searchable CD of the entire Krstic transcript.

JUDGE HUNT: How many CDs will that be, Mr. McCloskey?

MR. McCLOSKEY: I'm hoping it's just one, but of course, we will see. Nine hundred exhibits, some 102 Prosecution witnesses, and quite a bit of talking.

JUDGE HUNT: You also of course have to provide statements in so far as you're using statements rather than 92 bis (D).

MR. McCLOSKEY: Yes. Many of the key statements came in the confirmation material in both languages, but many of the other statements will be what Ms. Stewart will be working on in the next few weeks, taking them off the shelf, dusting them off, and getting them to Defence counsel really as soon as we can, since I believe we will be able to reach certain agreements and disagreements on facts, but of course not until Mr. Wilson has had a chance and his client has had a chance to become familiar with ¹⁰ the case.

JUDGE HUNT: Well, I think I can say fairly clearly this case will not start this year, but it is hoped that it will be starting early next year. I don't know quite when, but there is certainly a slot for it being looked at for early next year. So there is plenty of time, but if there is one thing that I've learnt in this place, is that if you give people time, they take it and don't always take it up very efficiently. But is there any point in fixing a time for compliance with 66(A)(ii), that's the statements?

MR. McCLOSKEY: I think it's a bit early at this point to really fix that. The reason I say that is two of the -- two of the areas that -- well, of all the some 90 witnesses, I have just in the last week reviewed those witnesses and can bring this case down to about I hope 15 or 20 key witnesses that should be heard in the court. The rest -- much of the rest of those I hope will be able to be 92 bis witnesses. But there are two areas that involve a lot of witnesses. One was the forensic exhumation, scientific evidence which was challenged by Krstic, so we put on all the evidence of the exhumations and the bodies. Also, there were a fair amount of intercepts in this case and lots of intercept operators and intercept chain of custody evidence, all of which was challenged by the Defence.

Now, once Mr. Wilson has a chance to review the case, he may or may not wish to take the same road the Krstic people will, and if he does not, then many of those witnesses will not be necessary, but we will be providing him with those statements as soon as we can, no matter what, so ^{11BLANK PAGE 12} that we can -- so that we can keep moving on this. I've been assigned to a trial that starts September 10th regarding Bosanski Samac, so I need to not waste any time and get this case going, which we have already done and we've already had a chance to speak, so I think we are going in that direction.

JUDGE HUNT: It should be one with which you have some familiarity any way. There has been a decision by a Trial Chamber in relation to 92 bis. I don't know whether you're aware of that, in Trial Chamber III. It's the Sikirica case. There was a decision on the 23rd of May, and it's the only one so far of which I'm aware. There is some consideration given to whether or not somebody should be brought for cross-examination or whether the statement is sufficient, and it may be of some assistance to both parties in considering your -- the way you approach it here. I'm not sure that it's material which is binding on anybody but it's certainly at least a very helpful examination of some of the issues which arise. Is there anything else the Prosecution wants to raise?

MR. McCLOSKEY: No, Your Honour.

JUDGE HUNT: Well, now, Mr. Wilson, first of all in relation to the preparation for trial, is there anything you want to raise at this stage?

MR. WILSON: There is nothing at this stage, Your Honour. I've received the materials that Mr. McCloskey has described this morning. I would like to thank both the Tribunal and Mr. McCloskey for your accommodation in scheduling today's hearing. I appreciate this is a very busy week for the Tribunal and perhaps even busier than all of us expected ¹³ when we scheduled it. I'm also aware that Mr. McCloskey, of course, is in the middle of a trial and I appreciate the time that he and his staff have taken to meet with me this week and to help me. They have been very courteous and I look forward to working with them and trying to resolve all of these things to the extent that our respective duties permit us to do so and I'm satisfied that we will be able to resolve most of it.

JUDGE HUNT: You know that you have the right to make an application to the Trial Chamber at any time if you are having problems.

MR. WILSON: Yes.

JUDGE HUNT: I think I am correct in pointing out you have got a helpful Prosecution team. It's not something that can be said of every Prosecution team, but nevertheless if there is something that you can't resolve between yourselves, you have the right to complain and to bring it to the attention of the Trial Chamber just as the Prosecution does. Now, the other matter we have to deal with here according to the Rule is anything that you want to raise about the mental and physical condition of your client. It's a very general matter. This Rule was brought in after there had been an unfortunate incident out at the detention centre where somebody had been terribly ill and it hadn't been brought to anybody's attention, so I should ask you, is there anything you want to raise on that issue?

MR. WILSON: There is not, Your Honour. I have spent much of this week with Mr. Obrenovic and I do not believe that there is anything of that sort that needs to be brought before the Court at this time.

JUDGE HUNT: Well, you'll be brought back every 120 days. ¹⁴

MR. WILSON: I look forward to it, Your Honour.

JUDGE HUNT: We do attempt to resolve everybody's convenience, which is not always easy. We have counsel coming from all parts of the world. But we have always been successful, I think, in doing so, sometimes perhaps a day or so outside the 120 day limit, but there should be no problem so far as I can see, provided there is plenty of notice given to you.

MR. WILSON: Yes, sir.

JUDGE HUNT: All right, then, is there anything else that either party now wants to raise?

MR. WILSON: No, Your Honour.

JUDGE HUNT: Thank you very much. Well, then, we will see you again in about 120 days.

MR. WILSON: Thank you.

JUDGE HUNT: And I'm grateful to everybody for being able to attend. I'll adjourn.

--- Whereupon the Status Conference adjourned at 11.13 a.m.