³²⁰⁸⁰

Thursday, 17 June 2004

[Pre-Defence Conference]

[Open session]

[The accused entered court]

--- Upon commencing at 10.01 a.m.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, I'm not going to -- I'm not going to ask for appearances. We're all familiar with ourselves. This is a Pre-Defence Conference, and it is held pursuant to Rule 73 ter. Its purpose is to enable the Chamber to make decisions for the management of the Defence case. The measures to be adopted are designed to promote expeditiousness in the presentation of the Defence while ensuring fairness to the accused.

Let me tell you how we will proceed today. The Chamber has received submissions from the Prosecution and the amici. We also have submissions made by the accused at the Rule 15 bis conference on March 25th. The Chamber itself has not been bereft of ideas. From these sources, I have made a list of issues to be dealt with. I will raise the issue, generally indicate how the Chamber proposes to deal with it, and then invite comments from the parties and the amici. On occasions, the comments may precede the decision. What I do not want is for parties to be raising issues at will, in any order.

When I've gone through my list, if there is any matter that has not been covered, parties will be free to raise those matters. Principally, I'll be working from the submissions made by the Office of the Prosecutor, and the first one is covered in paragraphs 8 to ³²⁰⁸¹ 13 of the submission, and the submission there -- Mr. Kay, is there a problem?

MR. KAY: Not now.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thanks. The Prosecution's submission there is that a limit should be set on the number of Defence witnesses. The Chamber has considered this matter carefully. It will not set a limit on the number of witnesses. Limitations on the number of witnesses will be achieved in the following way: Firstly, the Chamber will enforce the order it made earlier that the Defence case is confined to 150 sitting days. The second way in which there will be a limitation on the number of witnesses is, of course, by the ordinary application of the rules of evidence, and we have in mind the rules relating to relevance. Evidence will obviously not be admitted unless it is relevant. But while not imposing a limit on the number of witnesses, I would say to you, Mr. Milosevic, that you should bear in mind that in the period of 150 sitting days, which is the period that the Prosecution took to present its case, it called approximately 300 witnesses, but then, they utilised the procedures under 89(F) and Rule 92 bis, which allowed the introduction of witness statements. So you would want to take that into account.

On the question of relevance, I observe, Mr. Milosevic, in your 65 ter submission a large category of witnesses who it is said will testify about their detention. That is a matter which the Chamber will monitor closely as to the relevance of the evidence to be given by those witnesses. ³²⁰⁸² Another means at the disposal of the Chamber to limit the number of witnesses is to ensure, as far as possible, that evidence is not cumulative, overly cumulative. This is a matter for the exercise of discretion, but evidence should not be presented in a manner that is overly cumulative, and the Chamber will monitor that quite closely. I want to say generally that the management of the Defence case is an ongoing exercise and will be subject to review as the case progresses. The next matter on my list is the witness order, paragraphs 20 to 26 of the Prosecution's submission.

Mr. Milosevic, I want you to understand very clearly that we will require you to present the evidence in an orderly manner, indictment by indictment. We, of course, take into account that some witnesses will be overlapping, but what we don't want is for you to start with witnesses, say, from Kosovo today and then the next day you jump to Croatia and the next day to Bosnia. So apart from overlapping witnesses, witnesses are to be presented indictment by indictment. It will be a matter for you to decide, of course, the order in which you wish to present the witnesses in terms of the indictments.

The Chamber will require the accused to produce a list of his first 50 witnesses and the likely order in which they will be called. And the accused will also be required to produce a weekly list of witnesses, to be provided on the last sitting day of each week, and this for the following week's hearing. Generally, that will be on a Thursday, sometimes on a Wednesday. These lists must contain the name and the Rule 65 ter number of each witness as well as the estimated time the witness ³²⁰⁸³ will take in evidence in chief.

The third matter, the names of witnesses, paragraphs 14 to 18 of the submission. The Chamber has already ordered the accused to produce the names of the witnesses on his 65 ter list to the Chamber, and except for those identified by him as requiring delayed disclosure protection, to the Prosecution and the amici.

The deadline for providing that material has already passed, Mr. Milosevic, so this is a matter that you must attend to immediately. Mr. Milosevic, I want to ask you, how many of the witnesses on the witness list will you require delayed disclosure for?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I can't give you exact number right now, Mr. Robinson. You have received, or at least I hope you have --

JUDGE ROBINSON: I'm not getting any translation.

THE INTERPRETER: Can you hear the English channel?

JUDGE ROBINSON: Start again. Yes.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Can you hear the English channel now? Because I seem to be getting the English channel. As I was saying, you have received what you required as regards disclosure of the names, and I assume that you received over 1.300 names, close to 1.400, in actual fact. So it's not a question of speaking about any protection but the fact that it was impossible in this short space of time for me and my associates to conduct interviews with the witnesses who wish to testify. And they should tell us already now whether they agree to having their names disclosed at all. ³²⁰⁸⁴ So when I mention the figure of 1.300 or 1.400, the names that you received, means that we have talked to all those witnesses and that they agree that their names be disclosed. Of course, only to the Trial Chamber. Now, what remains to be done is to finish off the portion of that job, and as you are well able to conclude for yourselves, linked to what you said a moment ago, there are restrictions and limitations. So if you stand by that, that would mean -- and the question arises of a new selection which will have to be made. I would have to undergo a new selection, and this is a very difficult thing to do. But I shall go back to that issue, because you said that you would take the issues one by one, and when it comes up on the agenda in the course of today's day, I shall take the floor again. Or if you would like me to do so, I can go ahead and tell you straight away.

JUDGE ROBINSON: No. Wait until we come to that issue specifically. What you're saying is that you need more time to identify the witnesses in respect of whom you would want delayed disclosure. You have not been able to interview all the witnesses. Do you have an idea as to how long it will take you to complete that exercise?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] I'll need a few more weeks to finish that job and not to go on with the other business in hand and all the other preparations I need to get through, but we'll come to that in due course.

JUDGE ROBINSON: The other matter that has been raised by the Prosecution in relation to this is that the accused should supply the date ^{32085 BLANK PAGE 32086} of birth of each witness on his 65 ter list, and the Trial Chamber will require the accused, where possible, to provide this information. As a general comment, I wish to observe that what the Prosecution did in terms of the provision of information to the accused is not necessarily a correct basis for determining the accused's responsibilities, because the Prosecution has obligations under the Rules which the Defence does not have. Conversely, the Defence has rights which do not apply to the Prosecution. The Chamber does, however, have an inherent power to manage the proceedings.

This brings me to the next matter, which is in paragraph 19 of the Prosecution's submission, and that is a request that the accused be required to produce more detailed witness summaries. In respect of this matter, I'm going to invite submissions from the -- from the parties and the amici very briefly. It's an important legal question as to how far one can go in requiring more details from an accused person at this stage of the proceedings. The Prosecution has -- the Defence, rather, has a right is to remain silent, not to disclose its case, and one has to be careful that this right is not jeopardised by the provision of what is called "more detailed summaries." But it's an important legal issue, and I'd like to hear briefly, very briefly, from the parties on this issue. I'm going to start first with Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] The point of everything that I wish to do here is this: It is to present the truth. And you know full well that the most terrible accusations have been uttered here; and at the same time I know full well, and not only me but others, too, that is to say the ³²⁰⁸⁷ whole of the public in Serbia, that the most flagrant lies have been spoken here as well. And the only means to fight that is to present the truth, and I should like here, before the public, to prove that these are all false indictments, false accusations against Serbia, against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and against myself personally, against something that is usually referred to here as Serb forces, the army, the police, the church, the academy of arts and sciences, and many historical --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, I am stopping you. Please attend specifically to what I've asked you to do, which is to make a very brief submission on the Prosecution request for more detailed summaries. Just that issue. We don't want a speech. If you don't have anything to say on that specific legal issue - it's a legal issue - then say so and then we can move on to the Prosecution and then the amici. Just that issue and that issue alone, Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Very well, Mr. Robinson, but it was precisely you yourself who said that that is not an obligation on my part. Of course, you can say that everything is an obligation, but I see absolutely no reason for me to prepare summaries for the testimony of witnesses and to provide you with that in advance, especially if we bear in mind not only the legal reasons, the ones that you have raised, but also the time that this would require. And you even mentioned a moment ago that you're now introducing and requiring me to give you the dates of birth for each individual witness. I just didn't go about collecting those kinds of facts because I didn't consider them to be important. ³²⁰⁸⁸ Everybody is of age, they are all adults, and it never occurred to me that each witness should be provided with the time and date of his birth, which means that with 1.500 or 1.600 repeated contacts, we would have to come by a date of birth.

Now, as far as the summaries are concerned, I consider that infringes in all respects upon my rights, this obligation on me to provide the opposite side with summaries of the witnesses I intend to call. So briefly speaking, in the list that I provided you with, I have made a note of what the witness is going to testify about, whether personal knowledge, events, something else. Mostly it is the personal knowledge of the witnesses with respect to certain events and certain circumstances that prevailed, and everything that I consider to be relevant. So I deem that to be sufficient as information provided to the other side.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Milosevic. I understand you to be saying that you find it legally objectionable, and as a matter of practice, unduly burdensome. Might I also tell you that in relation to the date of birth of each witness, what we will require you to do, and I said this quite clearly, is to provide this where possible. Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: The Chamber referred to our filing. It is, of course, a confidential filing. The passages that deal with this topic are found on paragraph 19. I needn't repeat them. We have proposed certain general patterns for summaries that might help the Chamber as well as accord with the law and practice of the Chamber. ³²⁰⁸⁹ The law is really to be found, I think, only at 65 ter (G) where the nature of the sort of summary that might be provided is dealt with. It simply refers to a summary of the facts upon which each witness will testify, to some degree qualifying that by saying the Defence is also obliged to identify the points in the indictment to which the witness will testify, and it's perhaps hard to conceive of that being done sensibly without some material being put on the barest of summary. In addition to that, the Chamber may think that it can only perform some of its functions under 73 ter, for example, dealing with the estimated length of examination-in-chief and so on if it has a reasonable summary of proposed evidence from the witnesses the Defence is going to call.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, the question is this: Whether the accused has not discharged his obligation under 65 ter (G) by providing the material that he has provided as a summary of the facts. I understand you to be saying that you want more detailed information. In which case, what you would have to consider is whether the requirement for more detailed information may not infringe or come close to infringing the accused's right not to disclose his case.

As you know, the practice in the Tribunal is that an accused is not required to produce witness statements, and the more detail you require, the closer you come to requiring something akin to a witness statement. So that is really the issue, and I would be interested to discover whether past practice is in support of this, the provision of more detailed summaries. Have you done any investigation into the ³²⁰⁹⁰ Tribunal's practice?

We found one case in which there was a request for something akin to witness statements, and the Trial Chamber, of course, disallowed it, pointing to the fact that it is not allowed by the Rules, but did allow the provision of a summary.

There was another case which we found, going far back, before the 65 ter (G) Rule was drafted, which went the other way. And this is why we have invited submissions on it, to try to ascertain what the practice is, and indeed it's a matter for the Chamber to determine what the law is. I mean, the practice is one thing, but we have to decide what the law is and what the law is that we will apply.

MR. NICE: On the practice, nothing beyond what Your Honour has already identified, but if more comes to me in the course of the morning, I'll bring it to your attention.

On the law, the law is, if I can say, thinly drafted. There's only limited material to guide us, and I think I've taken you to it. There's a summary and there's the points in the indictment, but that description of a summary should be seen in the context of the powers that you have to exercise under 73, and you can only exercise those powers if the summary is of some value and gives a sufficient degree of detail to enable you to exercise those powers.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. But remember that the Rules have to be read consistent with the Statute.

MR. NICE: Of course.

JUDGE ROBINSON: It's one thing for the Rules to say a summary, ^{32091 BLANK PAGE 32092} but that does not -- would not in my view, speaking for myself, allow a Trial Chamber to require the kind of details that would be tantamount to requiring the accused to disclose his case.

MR. NICE: Well, Your Honour, we would respectfully disagree to this extent: The degree of summary that we have suggested is hardly disclosing a case in detail, but in some cases it would be, but would bring such measures of efficiency to the conduct of the case as to make sense of application of these Rules without disabling the accused in any way from the proper exercise of his rights. Plus the fact, of course, that the Chamber is always in a position, as it's made clear -- or indeed as Your Honour has made clear in your separate opinion in the recent decision, the Chamber is always in a position to put out of its mind material that it may have read, being, of course, a Chamber composed of professional Judges, if in due course that material isn't reflected by evidence or otherwise comes to nothing.

So that in the competing interests of the accused's right not to disclose his case in detail and the Chamber's duty to manage the case efficiently and indeed to exercise the powers that it has under 73, we would invite you to say that a great deal more is required of the accused than has been provided by these extremely exiguous summaries, although something of course falling considerably short of the full witness statement that we recognise is not our entitlement on the authority of these Chambers.

If there's anything else in the practice -- I have no doubt many people are watching these proceedings who will be able to add to ³²⁰⁹³ information presently with me. If there's anything else in the practice, I will draw it to your attention but I'm not aware that there is. I certainly remember, of course, how the Chamber dealt with it in the case of Kordic, as will Your Honour, where the accused were then represented by lawyers and where the summaries were substantially limited at that time. But I don't know that I can add any further to that.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Thank you --

MR. NICE: Will Your Honour just give me one minute.

[Prosecution counsel confer]

MR. NICE: Yes, I'm grateful indeed to the Prosecutor. Your Honour explained to the accused that one of the things that he must not do is bring cumulative evidence. Apart from any other requirements the Chamber may have of him in provision of material so that it can exercise its powers, it will need to have some adequate summary of evidence if it's to rule in advance that evidence may be coming cumulative. And we can see the terrible consequences of the Chamber not being able to deal with these matters in advance; namely, there will be days listed for hearings, witnesses will turn up, because the Chamber doesn't know sufficiently in advance what the witness is going to say, it won't know until he or she starts to speak that the evidence is inadmissible. The Chamber will rule the evidence is inadmissible and days of hearings will be lost. For the proper administration of the case, which is a proper concern of the Chamber, more detail is required than presently provided.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Nice.

JUDGE KWON: In relation to the summary of the witnesses, I wonder ³²⁰⁹⁴ if Mr. Nice or Mr. Kay could answer this question: I just received this confidential witness schedule submitted by the accused just before I entered this courtroom. There we can see some brief summary. My question is whether this summary is identical to that which appears in the 65 ter submission or whether this is a further developed form in terms of context.

MR. NICE: Our understanding - I haven't checked it - is that these are identical with the 65 ter summaries, but no doubt -- I see a nod, so I think we can be clear about that.

MR. KAY: It's from the 65 ter (G) submission.

JUDGE KWON: Thank you.

MR. NICE: I am advised, and will try and check over the break, assuming we go over a break, that in two cases more detailed information has been required of Defence. One is the Tuta, Stela case and one is the Blagojevic case. I will attempt to obtain, over the break, examples of the summaries that were required of accused in those cases.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Nice. Mr. Kay.

MR. KAY: Yes, Your Honours, looking at the Rules, the point has to be made right at the start that the word "summary" is used rather than the word "statement," or even "proposed testimony." And this is a resource issue for the Defence as much as anything else. The time taken in writing elaborate summaries containing all the facts and details, albeit not even in a narrative form that you would get in a statement, is an undertaking that takes a great deal of time and resources that Defences generally don't have, and in my experience, they are tasks that are just ³²⁰⁹⁵ too far to expect from the resources of a Defence team during a trial. It's easy for the Prosecutor: They're based in the building; they have a large administration available, many staff available that far exceed those of an accused person, and they can provide more elaborate information in the form of the summaries that we received during the Prosecution case over the last two and a half years of this trial. As for the Defence, Your Honour's rightly noted the privilege there is against self-incrimination, which is a feature of the Rules of the Tribunal. This is information that is required here which does not encroach upon that right of an accused, but in our submission, is an indicator for the Judges who are considering the evidence as to the subject matter the Defence witnesses will be speaking on during the day, and often simple signposts of the nature of the evidence is all that is required. And if the Judges see that there are signposts within the summary that appear to be cumulative of other evidence in the trial, the Judges, of course, can raise this matter with the accused and say, "Well, we have heard a lot about this particular camp or fact, and is this going to be extra to that which we've heard before or is it going to be casting a fresh light that you feel is necessary for considering the Defence?" So with those simple signposts and indicators, in our submission, that is adequate for the purposes of the Rules. The Rules are not intended here that a defendant provides details by which his witnesses could be impeached by the Prosecution, that there could be cross-examination on previous inconsistent statements, that there could be delving into the privileged material of the accused that is held by him or ³²⁰⁹⁶ his advisors. It is not intended for that kind of operation. This is merely intended as an indicator as to the issues that will be dealt with by the witness.

We must remember the fundamental principles that we have here governing the Rules of the Tribunal, and some of them are not meant to be subverted in any shape or form as they hold good in customary international law, they're recognised by jurisdictions throughout the world, and it is quite clear from the Rules of the Tribunal that that is what is intended.

As to practices with -- within other cases, the first case, Tadic, dealt with this issue. There was a ruling in favour of the Defence at that hearing, and the matter came down to being a debate also on dealing with issues of legal professional privilege, to which this issue can also go.

Other cases, there has been surrender of summaries or even statements by the Defence counsel as a way of assisting the other side or the Judges, but that has been on a very voluntary basis, and careful perusal of some of these cases are needed that are cited to make sure that what is being cited as being practice wasn't as a result of compulsion but in fact by Defence concession upon that matter for their own purposes. It may have been that they wished to call a large number of witnesses in the time available and felt that this was an expeditious way of doing it. It all depends on the particular circumstances of the case.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Indeed, my understanding is as you have just outlined, that in practice in most cases the information is provided as a ^{32097 BLANK PAGE 32098} result of collaboration between the Defence and the Prosecution and is done on a voluntary basis. So of course the Chamber will want to examine the cases very carefully to -- to determine the issue. Yes. Judge Bonomy.

JUDGE BONOMY: It's a question for Mr. Nice, Mr. Kay, although you may have a comment to make on it. It seemed to me from what you said, Mr. Nice, that your principal concern in this submission is to ensure that the Court has adequate information to manage the Defence case. Your submissions seemed to be confined to that. Now, were I to read paragraph 19 of your written submission in the same light, that what you invite us to ask for is such material as we think would assist us in managing the Defence case.

MR. NICE: Of course we would find preparation for cross-examination much assisted by more summaries, and that, I think, has been found in other cases, whether by agreement or finding of the Trial Chamber, as a proper matter to underline compulsion of more detailed summaries, but bearing in mind the limitations of the regulatory structure that we have with an accused who is not represented, the bedrock support for more detailed summaries is clearly to be found in the needs of the Trial Chamber to be able properly to manage the trial. I'm not excluding the other purpose as a proper purpose for more detailed summaries, but the principal reason for a summary in this case must be that the Chamber must be able to manage this trial efficiently, and that itself does give rise to a requirement for far more detail than we presently have. ³²⁰⁹⁹

JUDGE BONOMY: But it may be said that if that is the fundamental basis for the requirement, that it could not infringe any right to silence or right not to disclose his case that the accused has.

MR. NICE: Well, I would adopt that argument and to some limited degree had foreshadowed it in my observations that the Chamber, in having more detailed material, is then able to set it aside and not to take it into account if it comes to nothing and is of no significance either because a witness is not called or indeed because what a witness says is out of line with what may have been forecast in the summary. So I respectfully and gratefully adopt that observation to the extent that it favours the argument that I'm advancing.

JUDGE BONOMY: Thank you.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes, Mr. Kay.

MR. KAY: If I could just deal with the paragraph 19 issue, and I'll start on page 10. High-level politically -- political or military witnesses, and it goes on to request specific, specific details of when, in what capacity, for what purpose the witness met with or knew the accused and what was said. Well, in our submission, that is encroaching entirely on what would be necessary for the Trial Chamber, and what it is in fact giving is perhaps a weapon to the armory of the Prosecutor, because that is what the surrender of the disclosure obligations or privileges that the accused have is able to achieve. And this isn't an issue just for the Judges being able to exclude evidence or one side and ignore matters if they're not raised. It is not really a Judge-related issue. Once it's in the public domain and it goes to the Judges, it also ³²¹⁰⁰ goes to the Prosecutor, and it can be then information that they use against an accused and adopt a case in respect of it that is beyond that which would normally be given to them as information. It goes on to say: "Further, more specific details of events, places, significant meetings, and/or persons and/or structures the witness will testify about and details of the basis for the witness's knowledge on these points." So the witness is even being asked to justify in these summaries that to which he is speaking. The witness is being asked to disclose the full tableau of the evidence; the conversation, what took place, way beyond that which, in our submission, is a summary, and it becomes then more of an explanation and then one can see the battlefield developing between the Prosecutor and the witness, "Well, you have this opinion, you have this attitude," and it may well be then a valuable source for cross-examination by them.

If we go to the next stage, lower-level members of the military police, paramilitary, or other armed force, specific details of the armed force the witnesses fought in at the relevant time. So not a summary of the evidence to be given but details of the background. So going beyond that which the purpose of the evidence being called by the accused is being put before the Court.

Furthermore, specific details of the dates, events, places and persons the witness will testify about and the basis for the witness's knowledge on each point are necessary to determine the relevance of each witness's evidence and to focus the examination on the most important points. ³²¹⁰¹ Some of these matters can be dealt with, of course, by the Judges during the course of a witness giving testimony, as has frequently happened during the Prosecution case. One of the Judges have said, "Well, we've covered this matter once before, we've heard this from another witness, let's move on to another subject." It's not something that requires some kind of guidance necessarily before the witness gives evidence. But the background details there are really, again, seeking to find further elaborate details about a particular witness that wouldn't normally be -- be disclosed and isn't relevant, in our submission, for the purposes of Rule 65 ter (G).

If we look at Serb victim witnesses, to the extent these witnesses should be included on the list the Prosecution would argue that some should not. Details of the component of the military police, paramilitary, or other armed force the witness fought in at the relevant time should be provided. This is for a Serb victim witness. Details of what they -- what they were doing or what they fought in. How that comes into 65 ter (G) in the usual way, I can't imagine. "In addition, specific details of where the witness was detained (if held in a camp) and the period of the detention as well as specific details of the crimes the witness will testify about, including dates and details of perpetrators should be provided." This is in fact, if you look at each section, amounts to the provision of a statement rather than that of a summary. And I can't stress enough how Defence resources are not available, really, for this kind of detailed analysis in this form during the trial. It would be far too onerous a provision for the accused to ³²¹⁰² comply with.

Unless I've got any further --

JUDGE ROBINSON: It would no doubt assist the Prosecution in preparing for cross-examination, but your submission would be that the accused has no obligation to provide that kind of information.

MR. KAY: That's not the purpose of the Rule at all. This is a case management Rule for the Judges and to ensure that the -- this aspect of the trial runs ahead smoothly rather than providing full-scale disclosure from one party to another. That's not the purpose of the Rule.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Kay. Mr. Nice, something briefly?

MR. NICE: Just very briefly. I don't know what cases Your Honours were able to find, but in Galic - and I'm grateful to one of my colleagues for bringing this to my attention - Judge Orie identified as the reason for, or the justification for more detailed summaries this: That the right to call evidence which is available to a Defence is associated with duties, and he found, or his Chamber found, that one of the duties is that the Defence should give such 65 ter summaries that the Prosecution is in a position to prepare for cross-examination. I don't know if that's one of the decisions you were able to consider in advance. If not, we can, of course, make it available to you. And I think there are also passages from His Honour Judge Liu's decisions in Blagojevic that we'll make available to you as well.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Nice. The Chamber will consider this matter and give its ruling shortly, perhaps later today. ^{32103 BLANK PAGE 32104} The next matter that I turn to relates to expert witnesses, paragraphs 27 to 32 of the submission. Pursuant to Rule 94 bis, the Trial Chamber will require the accused to serve on the Prosecution and the amici any expert reports six weeks before the date on which it is anticipated the expert will testify.

Mr. Milosevic, may I ask whether you intend to call any expert before the summer recess.

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Generally speaking, Mr. Robinson, what would suit me is to have a few experts at the beginning of the case, because that would be useful for all in order to understand the entire matter. No doubt I would need a number of expert witnesses in the first wave of witnesses, so to speak.

However, as regards experts, I would like to clarify a particular matter with you. That is a question which is in Rule 94 bis. That has to do with expert witness testimony.

In relation to testimony of expert witnesses, you have a few things here that do not cause any concern on my part, because the experts that I'm going to call are persons whose competence no one in the world can challenge, truly no one. In terms of their competence, they cannot be compared at all to the experts that were called by the other side. However, I am concerned about this subparagraph (C). So I ask you to give me an answer now so that we could establish this as a rule, because subparagraph (C) says: "If the opposing party accepts the statement of the expert witness, the statement may be admitted into evidence by the ³²¹⁰⁵ Trial Chamber without calling the witness to testify in person." I would like -- it says here, actually, that you can admit this into evidence if the opposing party, this other side there, accepts the statement, that you can decide not to call the witness in person at all. My request with regard to that particular matter is the following: To rule that the experts be heard irrespective of the position of the other side, in view of the great importance of the questions that they will be dealing with and because of the need for their expertise to lay a foundation for the rest of the evidence. And their expertise is unequivocal.

I have said already at the outset that I do wish to call some expert witnesses, yes.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, generally when I ask you a question, you are not to answer by asking another question. The answer that you gave to the question that I asked was that you would wish to call some experts in the first wave of evidence. In view of the ruling which we have made that you will be required to serve on the Prosecution reports six weeks before the date on which it is anticipated the expert will testify, there would be a problem in adhering to that requirement if you intended to call experts in the four weeks of trial in July, and that was the purpose of my question, because if you intend to do that, then the Trial Chamber would have to consider making some amendment to the requirement of 30 days for the opposing party to say whether it will cross-examine or accept the report.

You must tell us very clearly, and the Chamber will give you a ³²¹⁰⁶ period of seven days in which to indicate, whether you intend to call experts, so that if it is necessary, the Chamber will consider making some adjustment to the Rule.

I see Mr. Nice getting ready to stand up, and I suspect I know why. Mr. Nice?

MR. NICE: Two things, please, Your Honour. First, six weeks, would that be six weeks from the provision of the report in English? Because, of course, provision of a report in Serbian or B/C/S may constitute no more than provision of the report within three weeks, two weeks, or one week in English before the witness is called. In our original filing, we suggested that the timetable really required two months. We responded to the amici's answer in our reply and said that we would respectfully ask for six weeks from provision of the document in English.

The second point, separate from that and perhaps almost more connected to the previous issue Your Honour raised is this: If we look at the latest schedule provided by the Defence of witnesses and start at the fifth in that list, which is 65 ter number 1331, it seems inevitable to us that, for example, that that witness -- I'm not sure at the moment if I'm in a position to name these witnesses publicly so I'll just go by 65 ter numbers for the time being. 1331, and certainly the next three witnesses, 1115, 1114, and 1098, are all witnesses whose evidence will be or will include an element that will be expert in its nature, and it is not, in our respectful submission, satisfactory for expert witnesses or witnesses who will give expert testimony to come in in the guise of giving factual ³²¹⁰⁷ evidence and then to give expert evidence or seek to give expert evidence thereafter.

If we look, for example, at 111 -- sorry, 1331, the first person to whom I referred, this is a lawyer who is inevitably going to be giving expert legal opinions, arguably constitutional matters. When we come to 1115, similar considerations apply but now with historical flavour.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, I was thinking we shouldn't be going into this now because the admissibility of the reports will be governed by the -- by the standards which are applicable.

MR. NICE: Your Honour, yes. My only concern is that the accused shouldn't be under the illusion that merely stating that a witness is a witness of fact is going to determine the issue. And of course, 1098 is an interesting example of the limitations of our 65 ter summaries received so far because it says no more than the witness is an academician and that's all we know.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Kay?

MR. KAY: If the Court would forgive me, but some useful information has come from Ms. Anoya, who is liaising in relation to a number of these issues.

Two of the witnesses, their expert reports will be ready by the 1st of July. They came in in B/C/S. That's Witness 1115 and Witness 1114. 1098 and 1323 are still being worked on but there is a date for those two by the 1st of July.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. And that has been translated? ³²¹⁰⁸

MR. KAY: Yes, it's undergoing it now and they know that will be ready by the 1st of July. The registry are currently attending to it.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Well, that's helpful that those two reports could be proceeded with. But it would be -- it seems there's going to be a practical difficulty in relation to the time periods, because Mr. Nice is of course correct; the reports have to be translated into English. But for those two that will be available on the 1st of July, we would be able to proceed with those, because those will be translated into English.

MR. NICE: Well, technically I think there will be a difficulty, because the six-week period would take us into August. May I, without in any way binding myself for the future, indicate that if those are available in English on the 1st of July, we will do our best not to take a technical point with them if the timetable of the trial would otherwise make it efficient for us to take them in July.

JUDGE ROBINSON: You would not require the 30 days period?

MR. NICE: I can't say that for sure but I will do my level best to be accommodating.

JUDGE ROBINSON: You do have a lot of resources available, Mr. Nice, and --

MR. NICE: Some resources.

JUDGE ROBINSON: -- and it is open to the Chamber, pursuant to Rule 127, to reduce period of time. And that's what the Chamber had in mind.

MR. NICE: It sounds as though if the Chamber had that in mind and ^{32109 BLANK PAGE 32110} we are not be disposed to take a point against it, there will be no problem.

JUDGE BONOMY: I think when we were considering this we also had in mind that the six-week period was in anticipation of a version not in English and not translated coming to hand, but what you have here is one which is already going to be in English by the 1st of July.

MR. NICE: Your Honours, yes. The observation about resources, can I make this general point: Of course the Office of the Prosecutor has substantial resources, but on matters of expertise, we have frequently, in order to assist the Chamber, gone for outside assistance, and indeed I see that that assistance has been reflected in the recent decision that the Chamber has given.

Review of incoming expert reports will frequently require us to return to the same experts or, alternatively, to engage further external experts in order to give to our approach to the expertise a proper responsibility and integrity, and although we will do whatever we can with the use of internal resources, they are by no means limitless and neither do they cover every field. The Chamber will remember the difficulties we are still facing about, for example, the constitutional law aspect of the Kosovo case and will recall also that the historian, for whom many of these earlier witnesses would appear to be relevant, came from America and was not an in-house expert at all.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice, I didn't wish to embarrass you by suggesting that you have an embarrassment of riches in terms of resources.

[Trial Chamber confers] ³²¹¹¹

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Kay, can you just give us the two that you say have already -- will be translated and ready by the 1st of July.

MR. KAY: 1115 -- 1115 and 1114.

JUDGE ROBINSON: In respect of those two, Mr. Nice, the Chamber will reduce the period set out in 94 to 15 days, and then the accused should be ready to call those witnesses, taking that into account.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, since you're speaking about time concerns, I consider that you would have to be aware of the fact, as would the public, of certain facts. You have to be aware of facts which are relevant to time and the determination of time and the subject we're commenting on right now.

The conditions I found myself in means that my preparations are vitally slowed down, and the possibility for preparing in certain stages are even non-existent. I will quote just a few examples to illustrate that. They are of a material nature, therefore very exact. And these are those facts: The facts have been recorded and confirmed in writing. You or, rather, the opposite side over there has said that it has -- said it completed its case while I was in bed. I started working -- I did not get out of bed when you interrupted the case and adjourned. I started working on my preparations on the 25th of March. The date was the 25th of March. And because of your deadlines, I had to invest a great deal of time and effort for me to supply you this list of witnesses on four and a half thousand pages. That's one fact. So I started working on the 25th of March.

The second fact is this: On the 14th of April, my doctors told me ³²¹¹² to stop working. I wasn't even allowed to see my associates. The third fact: In conformity with my physician's decisions, I continued working on the 25th of May after a period of 41 days' interruption. And since then, which means the past three weeks, and I see that you are well aware of that because I received a copy of the report this morning myself, I can only work three days a week. So my request to you, gentlemen, is a very concrete one, and the reasons that I presented are, I hope, quite obvious and evident and merit you extending that deadline, extending my time for me to be able to do the necessary preparations. All the more so since, through your dynamics, you have impaired my health very seriously. And within the frameworks of my possibilities and the circumstances and the time I have at my disposal to allow me to interview at least 30. You have asked for 50, but I would like to be allowed to interview at least 30 witnesses, enough time to do that.

Now, if you curtail my time further and if you restrict these possibilities and the possibility of my engaging in elementary preparation, then in actual fact you are rescinding my right to a defence and curtailing that. And I'm sure you will remember, Mr. Robinson and Mr. Kwon, that on many occasions here I broached the question of when it is that you consider that I have the time to read through the more than 6.000 pages that I have been provided with during the trial. 600.000 pages, that is. And the answer I always got was that you would look into the matter. And then between the two parts, or sittings, I was given a couple of weeks to prepare the ensuing sitting and to read through these ³²¹¹³ 600.000 pages.

So my request to you is this - and you can see for yourself, you have all the dates, I'm sure that they have been recorded by all the services - and that is to extend my deadline, to extend the time I have for my preparations, for me to get through the basic preparations.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Milosevic. You're actually a bit out of order there, because we're going to come to that issue later on, but we take note of the submissions that you have made. I come next to paragraph 34 of the submission, the service of exhibits. Rule 65 ter (G) requires the accused to disclose to the Prosecution copies of all exhibits on his 65 ter list before the commencement of the Defence case, and the accused will be required to do so within seven days after this conference.

I come next to paragraphs 35 to 38, which deals with the participation of the accused. The Chamber will confine itself to saying that whenever it informs the accused that he is required to make a written filing, he will be expected to comply with that requirement. Paragraph 39, which deals with the imposition of Defence counsel, the Prosecution has again raised this issue. The Chamber recalls its previous rulings on the matter and will not deal with this matter at this time.

Paragraph 43, the accused testifying. The Chamber notes that the accused has not included his own name on the 65 ter witness list, and if he intends to give evidence, then he should inform the Trial Chamber when he intends to do so and how long he anticipates the evidence will take. ³²¹¹⁴ There are also submissions from the Prosecution relating to an opening statement of the accused. Generally, the Prosecution was opposed to this, but the Trial Chamber recalls that it has already decided this matter, transcript 8675. That matter was considered by the Chamber, and the Chamber, after hearing from the parties, decided that the accused will be allowed to make an opening statement. Accordingly, the accused will be allowed an opening statement of two hours. The Prosecution will not be given an opportunity to respond.

Paragraphs 44 to 46. This has to do with exculpatory material. The Chamber notes the concerns raised by the amici with respect to Rule 68 disclosure, but it considers that what the Prosecution is offering in its submission is reasonable and sufficient.

Paragraphs 48 to 50 of the submission. This deals with witnesses, five witnesses whom the Prosecution had intended to call before closing its case. The Chamber will not allow the Prosecution to call the five witnesses it did not call at the end of its case, but this is without prejudice to the possibility that the Chamber may itself decide to call any of these witnesses pursuant to Rule 98. And the same thing applies for the submissions under paragraphs 51 to 53, the list B witnesses. Paragraph 54 of the submission. Mr. Nice just referred to the difficulties in finding a constitutional expert. The Trial Chamber will shortly issue an order requiring submissions from the parties in due course.

Paragraphs 55 to 64 of the submission is the question of the Croatian intercepts. The Prosecution will not be allowed to call ³²¹¹⁵ Witnesses C-1249 or C-1250 to authenticate intercepts not admitted during the Prosecution case. But whether the intercepts can be used in cross-examination is a matter that will have to be dealt with if and when the issue arises.

Paragraphs 65 to 68 of the submission is a confidential matter, and the Chamber simply notes those paragraphs and will not deal with the issue at this conference.

Now, I come to the matters raised by the accused at the Rule 15 bis hearing on March 25th. The first matter is the extension of the three-month preparation time. We have heard submissions from the accused on this matter, so we need not hear him again on it. The Trial Chamber made adequate adjustment to the period provided to the accused to prepare his defence, and the Defence case will commence on the 5th of July, 2004, as scheduled.

The accused, at the Rule 15 bis hearing, also asked for an extension of the period of 150 days for the presentation of the Defence case. The Trial Chamber adheres to its order that the accused will have 150 sitting days to present his case.

The accused, also at the Rule 15 bis hearing, renewed his application for provisional release. He set out arguments. The Chamber has considered them. The Chamber refuses the application for provisional release.

The other matters that I'd like to raise are the accused, in presenting his evidence, will observe the Rules relating to evidence in chief: He is not to ask leading questions, and he must not give evidence ³²¹¹⁶ himself, he must not make speeches.

Production of documents. The accused must produce documents in court in an orderly manner. If he is producing documents not already exhibited in the case, then sufficient copies should be supplied for the Bench, the Prosecution, and as appropriate, the witness. And, Mr. Milosevic, you should bear in mind that documents not already translated into English will have to be translated, and so you need to take that into account and ensure that sufficient time is given to enable them to be translated.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, how do you expect me to have enough time when you're not giving me even as much time as you have decided to give me? Do a bit of calculation. Do the arithmetic. After that --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, I'm stopping you. In relation to the three-month period that was given, we took account of the fact that you were ill for a period of that time. We calculated it. We extended the period in the first case by two weeks, and then secondly, by another two weeks. So I think it is quite wrong of you to say that you have not been given the full period of time of three months. The Trial Chamber has been very sensitive to your health and has always taken account of the time that you need.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, I wish to believe that you're well-intentioned but perhaps not well-informed. You spoke about the matters I raised when I was here on the 25th of March. Neither you nor I at that time could have known that on the 14th of April I would have ³²¹¹⁷ been prohibited from going to work for a period of 41 days. So if the 25th of March was the beginning, then the 25th of July is three months. And if you add to that the 41 days because -- on the 25th of June is the three months, but if you add to that the 41 days, then that will make it the 6th of August at the very earliest, because I don't expect you to calculate in these 41 days which pursuant to your orders, not yours personally but the authorities keeping me in prison here, I was excluded all possibility of doing any work. So you cannot forget about those 41 days, although I see you wish to forget the fact that afterwards I was allowed to work just three days a week.

Therefore, taking this into consideration, if you calculate the time and bearing in fact -- bearing in mind the fact that I was ill and you interrupted this interval and started counting from the 25th of March, if you add to that the 41 days during which I was not allowed to work, then that will bring us to the 6th or 7th of August. And if you add to that the fact that I was allowed to work only three days a week, then of course that is a far longer period of time even if you take into account just the three-month time limit and deadline that you gave me. So I seem to have to fight for elementary human rights here and to prove that arithmetic and mathematics is an exact science, that medicine is based on exact facts and it too is an exact science, and that time can be calculated and counted and observed. So if you wish to infringe upon my time despite all the facts that I have set forward and the very mean period of three months that you have given me, you will do that because power is in your hands. But I don't think that it would be the proper ³²¹¹⁸ course to take because I didn't do this of my own free will. They forbade me to work and my associates were sent away from the detention centre, they were not allowed to come in. So I am bearing in mind the fact that you are very sensitive to my needs, but I'm willing to believe that you have gone wrong in some of your calculations, quite simply, because I went into this matter very carefully myself and calculated the time, and it is easy, in fact, to calculate.

So from the 25th of March to the 25th of June is three months. Add to that the 41 days in question, and that will take you up to the 6th of August. Only if you add that, if you forget the fact that I was not allowed to work more than three days a week. And in one particular week, quite by chance I put in four working days in order to be able to take in one more witness, and the Registrar told me I wouldn't be able to include that fourth day because I was allowed to work only three days a week. And in this paper, this piece of paper that I received this morning, in fact, I can see that that regime is still in force, and not only in force but that there are serious reasons for it to be continued, the way it is being administered. So those are the facts.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Milosevic. The Chamber considers that it has dealt very fairly with you in this matter and will not change the time period that has been set.

I think it is now time for a break. Let me consult first with my colleagues on that.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE ROBINSON: We will take a break now and we will resume at ³²¹¹⁹ 12.00.

Mr. Nice?

MR. NICE: Your Honour, yes. I will obtain, if I can, and provide over the break, the decisions in Galic; Krstic; Tuta, Stela; and Blagojevic concerning the nature of summaries. I have here, by way of example, a single set of summaries provided in Blagojevic which were found to be inadequate with the version that was subsequently found by the Chamber to be sufficient in case that would assist you. I had a couple of points that I would like to make on the decisions in those cases but I prefer to get the decisions together before you before I make those points, if you will allow me.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.

MR. NICE: I will hand in the samples from Blagojevic now.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Yes. Will the registrar please take the documents from --

MR. NICE: They're marked but only in an inconsequential way.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you.

--- Recess taken at 11.28 a.m.

--- On resuming at 12.46 p.m.

JUDGE ROBINSON: We took a longer adjournment to consider some of the matters that had been raised.

First Mr. Nice.

MR. NICE: Only to say, Your Honour, that Your Honours have had an opportunity of looking at the decision in Tuta, Stela, a passage from the session in Krstic which dealt with this topic, and also in Blagojevic. ³²¹²⁰ The decision in the Galic case is still being searched for and hasn't yet been found and provided. I can make further comments on the passages that Your Honour will have looked at, but it may be sufficient to adopt the distinction that Mr. Harmon drew in Krstic between topic and facts, the rules relating to facts, and the very brief summaries of which he made complaint covering only topics and topics were found to be insufficient. Your Honours will also have seen your brother Judges in other cases have supported the notion that the Prosecution should by these summaries be in a position to prepare for forthcoming witnesses as well as to be provided with information which enables Trial Chambers to conduct their work.

I can't help further unless you -- it may be that Galic will be available soon.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you. Mr. Kay.

MR. KAY: Yes, Your Honours. If you'll forgive me for rising to my feet about one matter which has arisen this morning, and it's our duty as an amicus to raise certain matters if they occur to us to be of importance, and that concerns this subject of the length of adjournment necessary for the preparation and presentation of the Defence case. We all know that in the intervening period since the beginning of February until today's date, during which period the Court has not sat, that Mr. Milosevic has been subject to ill health, and I'm aware that the Trial Chamber has received regular medical bulletins, as indeed we have, concerning his treatment and circumstances over the intervening period. He mentioned the figure of 41 days that has been lost in relation ³²¹²¹ to his time for preparation caused by illness. I haven't actually checked that figure myself, but I was aware that it was in a region over one month, and I thought about six weeks, and I have no doubt that he would have kept the right figure over that period.

You will know, of course, that he has been the subject of medication, he has been the subject of medical advice which required him to stop working on his preparations, and the original order of the Court was that there be a three-month break before he started his case, having completed the Prosecution case.

In the circumstances, if one considers the amount of time that he has had out from being able to work as a result of medical advice and then on top of that you take into account his circumstances since February and until very recently, when his health has fluctuated on a regular basis and it is clear from the medical reports that there were periods when he was undertaking work that that had a poor effect upon his well-being and health, that one could adequately describe this as being battling with the preparation of his case during that time.

It's to reinforce his submission this morning that I raise this in relation to the time that's available. The calendar, at the moment, starts from the 5th of July, and there would be nine or ten Court sittings before the August recess. In our submission, if one took those days out of the picture now and said that the case was to restart at the end of August, in the third week of August, that would then allow the Court not to have missed too much in terms of time of the Defence case but also allow him those valuable extra days that he requires help with in relation ³²¹²² to getting his case into some semblance of order. It's quite clear from what was said this morning that there has to be a revisiting by him of his witness list, and the Court has reaffirmed the 150 day time limit, and that would have been a matter that would have been taken on board not only by him but his advisors, and there's got to be a restructuring of those witnesses as well as a partitioning into the issues of Kosovo indictment, Croatia indictment, and Bosnia indictment. And we've had a ruling on that really for the first time today in relation to the manner of the presentation of the case.

So what I submit in relation to this matter is this: That if the Court considered that those ten days could be shifted back in the calendar, in fact not a great deal will be lost by the Trial Chamber, but there may well be a great advantage to the administration of justice if that gave more time by which his case could be more smoothly prepared, taking into account today's rulings as well as the need for the proper presentation of his case.

The Court will be aware that he has been interviewing witnesses within the detention facilities. That has been made available, as he's representing himself, and that that, no doubt, has had a great deal of work on his behalf to achieve what is necessary for the presentation of his case. So if perhaps that little bit more time was given to him, it may be that it helped the Trial Chamber enormously in the long-term in the smooth preparation of his case and he could think now whether he's going to deal with Kosovo matters first or the Bosnia and Croatia matters first.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you, Mr. Kay. We're grateful for your ³²¹²³ submissions.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Nice?

MR. NICE: We have nothing further to say. We recognise that the Chamber has already made a decision about when the case should restart. In our submission, the accused has had time to prepare the witnesses who will be heard between that date and the end of the session. There's plenty of time then for further preparation for September. It would be unfortunate to lose this start date. It's highly desirable that the case is recommenced as soon as may be consistent with his rights, and we know that the Chamber has reflected on those rights and respected them in giving the measured decision it has about giving him extra time.

JUDGE ROBINSON: Thank you. I'll deal with three matters. The first matter relates to the information that the accused gave us about the 41 days lost due to ill-health. It also relates to the matter just raised by Mr. Kay.

The Chamber is going to order that the Registrar provide information about the number of working days lost by the accused due to illness; and secondly, the occasions when the associates were prevented from visiting him on account of illness. The Chamber seeks this information so that it will be in a position to deal with any difficulty that the accused experiences in presenting his case. The second matter is the Prosecution's request for more detailed summaries. The Chamber notes that the main ground submitted by the Prosecution for seeking more detailed summaries is that the Trial Chamber ³²¹²⁴ will be better assisted in the -- in its management of the case. At this stage, it appears to the Trial Chamber that the information provided is enough. We will not require more detailed summaries. This, of course, is without prejudice to the inherent right of the Chamber to manage the case and to request any additional information it wishes at any time. The third matter relates to the order that I made earlier that the accused should produce a witness list of the first 50 witnesses and the order in which he proposes to call them. That is to be done within seven days of -- of this Pre-Defence Conference.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE ROBINSON: There is just one administrative matter. Yes, Mr. Milosevic.

THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] You mentioned the matters that would be discussed today, and you said that in that order, we would be dealing with these particular matters and that I would probably have something to say in respect of these matters. So I assume that you will make it possible for me to say something to you about this. Without waiting to hear any reaction of mine or any argument that I may put forth, you have already made a decision. And you said yourself at the very beginning we will take the following matters in the following order, the witnesses, the limits, and so on and so forth. I wrote down all the questions that you raised, and I --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, I'm stopping you. I hear what you have said, and what you have said is true, but you did address us ³²¹²⁵ extensively out of the order that I had outlined in relation to the issue of the three-month period. You made extensive submissions on that issue, and that is why I didn't invite you to address us again. You have not addressed us specifically on the issue of the 150 working days, and if you wish to do that, then you may do that briefly, very briefly.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, very briefly: First of all with regard to the witness list, I wish to make it clear and known since you believe that it is too extensive a list, 1.631 persons, please bear in mind that tens of thousands of persons have volunteered to testify, astounded by the lies that they heard here. My associates and my comrades from the Freedom Committee and others have reduced the number to around 5.000, and I, together with a few associates here, reduced the number to the figure that I already gave you.

The question is now whether you're interested in the truth at all. I heard an objection, for example, that I have 200 witnesses on the list that are supposed to testify about camps. That is correct, but it is not a question of 200 witnesses. It's a question of 200 camps. I only put one witness per camp. I will have to reduce even that. I see that. However, all in all, I think that this limit that you imposed has to --

JUDGE ROBINSON: Continue, Mr. Milosevic.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] This limit that you have imposed is one that you reached through some kind of arithmetic that I cannot understand. How did you come up with this 150 days? The entire world knows that the other side had 300 days, and even that was done to the ³²¹²⁶ detriment of the public, because very often they resorted to your Rule 92 bis to provide written statements, and Rule 89(F), where thousands of pages were presented here during a negligibly short examination-in-chief and that's how these thousands of pages were dealt with. I want my witnesses to testify in public. All of my evidence is going to be public. I'm not going to ask for a secret session for any witness, although that has been done before.

So I believe that this hasty decision of yours to reduce things to 150 days is something that does not correspond to elementary rights and the need to have the truth heard. At any rate, it talks about a most extremely unequal position when compared to the side opposite, even if we disregard the fact that this other side has an enormous machinery that was placed at its disposal and that it has even today. Furthermore, with regard to the order and organisation, due to objective constraints that I've already presented you, I had the opportunity of speaking to only a few witnesses so far. You have information which will show you that I did not skip a single day of work that was allowed to me, and on each and every one of these days I received witnesses. The other side, when they see witnesses and when they prepare them, they keep them here for seven days or 15 days. I talk to a witness for one day, and then I take into account the fact that I will have another day or two prior to the actual day of giving evidence. So look at the attitude taken vis-a-vis my witnesses as opposed to those taken by -- vis-a-vis the witnesses of the other side. And I do not intend to call criminals or terrorists or any other such type of witness ³²¹²⁷ who have disqualified themselves through their own conduct. So you're asking me to provide within seven days 50 names of witnesses. I'm going to read this list out to you that you have seen. So far I've called to 1341, 1331, 1323, Witness number 6, 7, 1062, 25, 625, and 1170. As you can see, that's about ten witnesses.

Now, you tell me, if you take into account the fact that I used each and every one of the days that was made available to me as a workday and every day I worked for shorter periods of time because I cannot use the entire day, so I dealt with these witnesses, how do you expect me to provide a witness list before I speak to the witnesses that I'm supposed to give you a list of and before I see in which order they will appear? I think that this is at odds with any kind of logic. On the one hand, you do not give me an opportunity to talk to witnesses. On the other hand, you ask me to give you a list and the proper order, although I have not spoken to them. I think that you absolutely cannot say that this would be in the interests of justice or fairness of any kind. I see that an effort is being made to a maximum to practically prevent the presentation of the truth, and obviously this is the instructions you have and this is what you work under, but I have a few more requests, and there are some other things I wish to say to you. You did not ask for my views at all, but you said that you would give me two hours for introductory remarks. I could not believe what I was hearing. Mr. Robinson, you personally, here in this courtroom when Mr. Nice objected as to whether I had the right of an opening statement or not, you said that I do have the right to an opening statement. And when ³²¹²⁸ he raised the question of my providing the statements, you said that since I defend myself, you said that I had the right to a statement and to an opening statement. The fact that I made these statements cannot constrain in any way my right to opening remarks.

I wish to remind you of the fact that the other side, at the very outset, had an opening statement of two days. Towards the middle, when they moved on to Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia, they also had one day of an opening statement. I ask you to make it possible for me to have three days for an opening statement, too, because it is quite impossible to make an opening statement otherwise. I am going to introduce evidence through witnesses, exhibits, too, in order to shorten matters, but I do ask you to give me three days for an opening statement.

Furthermore -- let me just have a look at this. I have already asked for this, and I've mentioned this to you earlier on as well, to issue an order to disclose documents of foreign services that were involved in what took place in Yugoslavia, referring to Great Britain, the US, France, and Germany and their services in particular. And I asked you to make an order for this kind of discovery and disclosure when dealing with the lists of what Yugoslavia had. And I asked you to give an order in relation to persons whose names are on lists, on a list. These are hostile witnesses. Actually, this is Clinton, Genscher, Clark and many others. You have this list. Please issue an order that they have to appear as witnesses here.

We had one of them here, and he dictated the conditions of his giving of evidence. That was Clark. And at the same time, he did not ³²¹²⁹ even abide by your ruling at all not to communicate with anyone during his testimony, because in the middle of his testimony he brought this letter from Clinton saying that he was so good and successful, and so on and so forth. So Clinton has to appear here. Schroeder has to appear here. Blair, too, and others. They were heads of state. I was a head of state. You are trying me here as a head of state. I provided you with this list, and I ask you to issue this kind of order; that is to say, disclosure of the documents of the relevant intelligence services. And also these witnesses will have to appear here as witnesses, and also the list of documents that Yugoslavia, rather Serbia have.

And another technical question: I ask you to rule on free passage or safe passage for three witnesses that are here. I mean, immunity and so on and so forth, who were high officials of Yugoslavia, Republika Srpska Krajina, Republika Srpska. These are witnesses whose names I have to find on this list now. I don't want to read out their actual names. It's 1068, 1329, and -- and 327. They are on the first witness list. I assume, of course, that I should be given the opportunity to talk to them and that, after that, they should be given the opportunity to come and testify here. They are on this first list.

Now, in relation to your decision, the one that you also made public now without asking for any kind of reaction or opinion, that I should prepare witnesses according to these alleged indictments for Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo, in my introductory statement I said quite clearly that only one war was waged, and that was the war against Yugoslavia. And after all, you joined these three indictments, either ³²¹³⁰ spontaneously or in the wish to make things even more difficult. As far as I remember, Mr. Kay was opposed to that because he said that there is not a single human being that can deal in such a way with this entire case, but you have joined it nevertheless.

Now a few days before this deadline that you have established just now, you say to me that I am supposed to have Kosovo separately, Croatia separately, and Bosnia separately. First of all, in principle that cannot be accepted because actually this was a war against Yugoslavia. This entire decade, a war against Yugoslavia was waged. Also, I do not see any reason why anything should be imposed upon me. Of course, many other constraints were imposed upon me, but you did not impose any such constraints on the other side.

This Clark, for instance, he testified about Kosovo in the middle of the evidence that had to do with Bosnia-Herzegovina. There were also other witnesses who came in at a time when witnesses pertaining to other parts came here to testify. So I cannot accept that. And in addition to that, you stated here that I would be obliged to send in written motions. I have no intention of doing that for reasons of principle, Mr. Robinson. I never tabled any written motions because I don't recognise this Tribunal. I consider it to be an illegal Tribunal, and I consider it to be a means of warfare against my country. And treatment here and the treatment of my rights here testifies to that, because everything that you have said thus far here today is geared towards limiting to the maximum the fact that the truth should be heard here. ³²¹³¹ So I raised a series of matters and issues that I would like to hear your decisions on.

JUDGE ROBINSON: I will give the decision shortly.

[Trial Chamber confers]

JUDGE ROBINSON: Mr. Milosevic, you raised a number of matters, and the Chamber has given them careful consideration. With regard to your opening statement, you are quite right. I did speak very strongly in favour of your right to a statement, to make a statement. The question is how long it should be. It is true that the Prosecution took some days to make their statement, but you were then allowed to reply at that time. However, we take what you say into consideration, and we will extend the -- your opening statement by two hours so that you have four hours, or roughly one day, in which to make your opening statement. The next matter is the request that you're making for documents to be produced by states. That is covered by Rule 54 bis, which requires that a party requesting that a state produce documents or information must apply in writing. So that absolutely has to be in writing, Mr. Milosevic. You have asked us to require the appearance of a number of persons. In effect, you're asking us to subpoena those persons. You will have to produce, in writing, reasons for the issuance by the Chamber of that subpoena, and I make that absolutely clear. Don't interrupt. When I finish, I'll ask you to speak. The next matter is the order of -- in which the witnesses will appear. I had ruled that they will appear indictment by indictment, and there will be no change to that. How you conceive the indictment is ³²¹³² entirely a matter for you. The Chamber has the obligation to manage the case effectively and efficiently, and in the Chamber's view, witnesses should be produced indictment by indictment except where the witnesses overlap.

You have made a request for the free passage of three witnesses, 1068, 1329, and 327. Ordinarily, that should be done in writing, but the Chamber will consider the -- that application on the basis that it was done orally.

The Chamber maintains three-month period and the 150-day period, all of this subject to what I said about the information which we are requesting from the Registrar concerning the number of days that you lost due to ill health. When the Chamber gets that information, the Chamber would then be in a good position to determine how to approach any difficulty that you might experience in presenting your defence. I don't want to say anything more about -- I don't want to say any more about that.

The Chamber may then be inclined to show some flexibility in relation to the presentation of your case if you experience a difficulty, but that will depend on the information that we receive from the Registrar concerning the number of days that you have -- that you have lost. I believe that covers the matters that you have raised and I don't wish to prolong this hearing any longer. Do you have anything further to say, Mr. Milosevic?

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Well, I precisely wish to say this: I gave you on paper, to the liaison officer, actually, the one that you ³²¹³³ appointed or who the Registrar appointed, with the names of all these individuals. And the reasons for which Clinton should appear here are quite clear. He decided upon many matters which had to do with Yugoslavia. He uttered a series of lies as a pretext to the bombing of Yugoslavia. He gave the orders --

JUDGE ROBINSON: I have -- I have cut you off, Mr. Milosevic. That is out of order. We have made our ruling, and we intend to abide by it. You must abide by it too. If you want a subpoena issued by this Court, you will have to provide reasons prompting the issuance or warranting the issuance of that subpoena. I don't know of any court in which the position could be otherwise and I don't wish to hear anything more on that. If you are going to continue in that vein, we'll stop right now.

THE ACCUSED: [Interpretation] Mr. Robinson, is it logical that if you have set - when I say "you" I don't mean you personally, I mean this organisation here - a liaison officer, when you have appointed one, then I assume that what I request via the liaison officer reaches you and that you give it due consideration, because otherwise this liaison officer is unnecessary and given just as a cover to show that you have assisted me on administrative matters.

JUDGE ROBINSON: The liaison officer is a liaison. A liaison officer is not your counsel. You are representing yourself. You must make the representations to us in writing in relation to the matters that I have outlined.

Are there any other matters? ³²¹³⁴ We are adjourned.

--- Whereupon the Pre-Defence Conference adjourned at 1.27 p.m.