Kravica: Prosecution Seeks Admission of Hague Expert Testimony

The state prosecutor has sought admission into evidence in the Kravica case of reports by Richard Batler and Dean Manning, experts questioned at the Hague Tribunal during the trial of  Vidoje Blagojevic, Dragan Jokic and Radislav Krstic.
The prosecution wants to see these reports considered in the case against eleven men charged with executing around 1.000 civilians in the Kravica village on July 13, 1995.
The Trial Chamber has held off on a final decision, allowing the prosecution to read parts of the reports significant to this case without the authors’presence. It will give its verdict on ad miss ability after hearing the position of the defence on these citations.
Defence council has so far objected to the simple inclusion of this evidence, arguing that the forensic experts who produced the reports should appear at the Court of BiH for cross-examination.
Batler, a military expert, testified in 2003 at the International Crime Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, ICTY, giving his findings and opinions on military events that took place in 1995 in Srebrenica, as well as the structure of the army and police of  Republika Srpska at the time of the fall of the enclave.
Manning was called to testify in the Blagojevic trial as an investigator of the ICTY’s Office of the Prosecutor. He referred to several forensic reports,which relied on samples of textiles found in graves around Srebrenica to explain how victims were killed in 1995.
According to the Kravica defence lawyers, this report is particularly problematic, since it was produced on the basis of other expert findings. For this reason, they argue that it can not be included as material evidence, but that the authors of the primary research should be questioned.
The Trial Chamber also refused a request made yesterday by the prosecution to include ICTY verdicts against five Bosnian Serbs as material evidence in this case.
“We believe that it is not important to include supporting evidence such as these verdicts for facts that we have already accepted”, Hilmo Vucinic,chairman of the Trial Chamber, said.
The trial continues on November 17, 2006.