ICTY: SAM MINISTER OF JUSTICE SEES PRESIDENT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 THE HAGUE 001163 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR S/WCI - PROSPER/RICHARD, EUR/SCE - STEPHENS/GREGORIAN/MITCHELL, L/EUR - LAHNE, L/AF - GTAFT. INR/WCAD - SEIDENSTRICKER/MORIN; USUN FOR ROSTOW/WILLSON E.O. 12958: DECL: 1.6 FIVE YEARS AFTER CLOSURE ICTY TAGS: BK HR KAWC NL PHUM PREL SR ICTY SUBJECT: ICTY: SAM MINISTER OF JUSTICE SEES PRESIDENT MERON, CANCELS ON DEL PONTE REF: A. (A) MAY 4 LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL(WWW.UN.ORG/ICTY/LATEST/INDEX.HTM) ¶B. (B) STRASBOURG 92 Classified By: Legal Counselor Clifton M. Johnson per 1.5(d). ¶1. (SBU) Summary: Serbian Minister of Justice, Zoran Stojkovic, visited the President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY),Judge Theodor Meron, following his appearance at the provisional release hearing for indictees Frenki Simatovic and Jovica Stanisic. Earlier in the day, Stojkovic canceled a scheduled meeting with Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, deepening the rift between SAM and the Office of the Prosecutor. End summary. ¶2. (SBU) ICTY President Meron met on Monday, May 10, with Serbian Justice Minister Stojkovic, HEALTH Minister Tomica Milosavljevic, Kostunica legal adviser Aleksandar Simic, and SaM Ambassador to the Netherlands Maja Mitrovic, at their request. According to an ICTY press release, "Meron stressed the urgent need for Serbia and Montenegro's full cooperation in conformity with their international obligations." Meron's chief of staff elaborated to embassy legal officer that the conversation focused on the frozen state of cooperation between Belgrade and the ICTY Office of the Prosecutor (OTP). Meron emphasized the seriousness of his report to the Security Council that the SaM is in noncompliance with its ICTY obligations (ref A). In that report, which forwarded a report of the Chief Prosecutor, Meron told the Security Council that he considers the Chief Prosecutor's report as "indicating extremely serious failures" and "the Prosecutor has satisfied me that Serbia and Montenegro is failing to comply with its obligations" under the ICTY Statute. He added, "I also share the concern of the Prosecutor that such failures are detrimental to the expectations placed upon the Tribunal by its completion strategy and could seriously impinge the Tribunal's ability to meet those expectations." ¶3. (C) Stojkovic, who oddly thanked Meron for the report, and Simic argued that Belgrade would cooperate in accordance with its law on cooperation once the head of the Council on Cooperation was chosen (according to Stojkovic, SaM Foreign Minister Draskovic does not want the job). Meron pressed by asking whether the government would arrest Mladic if they found him at a cafe in Belgrade, or if the government would have to go through the Council for such authority. The Serbs said that Mladic could be arrested because an arrest warrant was already outstanding. By contrast, they said, last October's indictments of four senior Serbian military and police officials had not been submitted to the Council, so those four could not be arrested. ¶4. (C) Meron urged Belgrade to cooperate with the ICTY on an urgent basis and not to wait for the Council on Cooperation. He particularly urged cooperation in terms of waivers of immunity for witnesses and access to archival sources. According to Meron, "the ball is in your court," and a first step should be meeting with OTP representatives to resolve these issues. "Time is of the essence," he said, since the ICTY would be making written and oral reports to the Security Council by May 31 and June 15, respectively, and unless cooperation is reinstituted, both the President and Chief Prosecutor will give Belgrade failing marks. ¶5. (C) At the end of last week, Stojkovic had arranged to meet Chief Prosecutor Del Ponte on May 10 as indicated in ref ¶B. However, according to Del Ponte senior advisers, the SaM Embassy called early on May 10 to cancel the meeting without an explanation. Del Ponte was, according to ONE of the advisers, "outraged" at such treatment. The same adviser also noted that the fact that Stojkovic was still seeing Meron fueled Del Ponte's sense that the SAM was deliberately trying to send her a negative signal and foster a division between the OTP and Chambers. ¶6. (C) The team from Belgrade was in The Hague specifically to express to a trial chamber the SaM's guarantee that, should Frenki Simatovic and Jovica Stanisic be granted provisional release, they would be returned to The Hague as required by the trial chamber. It is believed that the Health Minister attended specifically because of the ill-health of Stanisic, though what further information he could add to that provided by local physicians was unclear. The hearing began on Monday, May 10, and is likely to continue on through Thursday, though much of the hearing has been conducted in closed session. Stanisic's defense lawyer told Embassy legal officers that the OTP is actively opposing the application for provisional release and introduced testimony from two investigators attesting to Stanisic's lack of cooperation. ¶7. (C) Comment: The visit of senior Serb officials to the office of President Meron in conjunction with the cancellation of a meeting with the Chief Prosecutor is being perceived by the OTP, likely with reason, as a signal that Belgrade would prefer to deal with the ICTY President than Del Ponte. While Meron is a much more measured and consistent interlocutor than Del Ponte and has been careful to maintain cordial relations with Belgrade and other governments in the region, SAM would be miscalculating if it believed either that it could avoid engaging the OTP at senior levels on cooperation issues or that Meron would provide a more sympathetic audience on matters on non-cooperation. Coming from Meron, the tough message -- that the ICTY as a whole rejects Belgrade's noncompliance -- should be taken seriously by SAM. Whether it results in any real movement, however, remains to be seen. End comment. SOBEL