Jovica Stanisic i Franko Simatovic

Jovica Stanisic’s defense filed a motion today seeking leave to appeal against the decision made by Judge Orie’s Trial Chamber last week. The Trial Chamber decided to admit into evidence additional exhibits after both parties had rested their cases. The exhibits included 15 excerpts from Ratko Mladic’s war diaries, 34 fragments from the personnel files of the Serbian State Security staff and 36 other documents.

The defense contends that additional exhibits admitted after the parties rested their cases would not allow them to properly challenge the allegations in the new documents. This is a violation of the right to a fair trial. According to Stanisic’s defense, the Appeals Chamber must intervene: if this issue is considered on appeal and if the Appeals Chamber finds that the admission of additional exhibits was erroneous, this could result in a re-trial.

At the same time, Franko Simatovic’s defense announced it would be filing a motion to admit its additional exhibits. The defense has asked for three weeks instead of the one week they were previously granted to prepare their motion for the admission of additional exhibits; this is part of their response to the documents admitted into evidence at the request of the prosecution. The defense notes in its brief that 85 new prosecution exhibits are of ‘extraordinary importance’ for the assessment of Simatovic’s responsibility and the defense needs time to respond adequately.

After the prosecution’s exhibits were admitted into evidence, the judges could schedule the closing arguments, provided that the defense did not seek leave to appeal or move the admission of new exhibits. Since the defense did both, the closing arguments will be scheduled later. The closing arguments were initially slated for mid-September 2012 but were postponed for a month. The Trial Chamber finally decided that the closing arguments would be presented on the ‘fourth Tuesday’ after the final decision pertaining to the admission of additional evidence.

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