At a status conference held as part of the trial of Milorad Trbic, the Trial Chamber considers issues pertaining to a written statement given by Vinko Pandurevic and the testimony of protected Prosecution witness PW13.
The Defence of Milorad Trbic presented transcripts of Vinko Pandurevic’s testimony at the Hague. Pandurevic has refused to appear before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a Defence witness.
The State Prosecution charges Trbic, as assistant commander for security with the Zvornik Brigade of the Republika Srpska Army, VRS, with having participated in the execution of more than 7,000 Bosniaks in Srebrenica in July 1995.
After Pandurevic, former Commander of the VRS Zvornik Brigade, refused to appear as a Defence witness, the Defence proposed at the status conference that the transcript of his testimony at The Hague be included as evidence. He is currently on trial at The Hague for crimes committed in Srebrenica.
Milan Trbojevic, Defence attorney of the indictee, said that he had “received the transcripts of his testimony last week, while the audio recordings arrived today”.
“Considering the fact that there is so much material, I would like to ask the Defence to tell us which parts of the transcripts are important, so that we can review them,” Trial Chamber Chairman Davorin Jukic said.
Trbojevic said that he would identify the relevant parts of the transcripts by the next hearing, while the Prosecution announced that it would ask the Court to include the full transcripts of Pandurevic’s testimony in the case file.
The issue of witness PW13, who has already refused to appear before the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was raised at this conference. At the last status conference the Defence announced that it would try to establish contacts with the witness’ attorney in order to find out whether he was willing to testify.
“I managed to get in touch with his Defence attorney, who told me that the witness did not want to testify any more,” Trbojevic said.
He added that the Criminal Defence Section “once again asked the Tribunal Registry to get in touch with him in the country in which he is serving his sentence”, but the Registry has not been able to do so as yet.
At the request of the OSCE, the Trial Chamber explained the protective measures it has applied in the case of protected witness A46.
“This witness testified under a pseudonym at a public session. He asked for his statement not to be published in the media. His request was approved,”
Chairman Davorin Jukic explained.
The trial is due to continue on April 27, 2009.