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Sokola said that during the testimony of the rape victim code-named RM-048, she heard Mladic say: “Branko, is Selmo alive? Mesa Selimovic, I extracted his Muslim family from Mostar… All this is true (waves the paper), I am proud of them. What does a Muslim woman want…”
The prosecutors, according to what could be heard in the courtroom, claim that the paper Mladic was waving saying “this all is true” was a part of the statement from RM-048. At the time when Mladic was saying these words, which Sokola wrote down in English and then got them translated into Croatian, judges nor the witness were not in the courtroom.
Sokola said she was in the courtroom on orders from the prosecutor Maxina Marcus, who asked her to pay attention to and write down everything Mladic was saying during recesses of hearings where a “sensitive witness with a sensitive story” was giving her testimony. Mladic spoke these words “very loudly”, while returning to the courtroom from the recess, said Sokola.
During cross-examination, lawyer Miodrag Stojanovic suggested that everything Mladic said in the courtroom was addressed to members of his defence team and that the communication, under the rules, was confidential and privileged.
Asked whether prosecutor Marcus warned her that the communication between the defendant and his lawyer was confidential, Sokola replied: “I got the assignment and I carried it out. That was not pointed out to me at the time.” Sokola said, adding that she believed that Mladic’s first sentence was referring to the late author Mesa Selimovic.
In mid-September this year, another officer of the Prosecution, Marija Karall, testified about what she heard Mladic say on February 18, during the second break in the testimony of RM-048. Karall, however, told the judges what Mladic said in the part of the hearing closed for the public. The Defence announced it would appeal the decision to accept Karall’s testimony as evidence because of the violation of official communication between the defendant and his lawyers.
Prosecutor Dermot Groome earlier stated that the prosecution believed that by speaking loudly to his lawyers Mladic waived his privilege to communicate with them confidentially.
Mladic, former commander of the Army of Republika Srpska, is charged with genocide, crimes against humanity, and violation of laws and customs of war.
At the end of the hearing, presiding judge Alphons Orie said he expected the prosecution to call all remaining witnesses by the end of November. According to the list it published, the prosecution has 12 witnesses remaining, mostly experts.
Since the Trial Chamber then has to make a decision on several motions and documents, the Prosecution’s evidence hearing will, the judge said, end by January next year.
If the defence files a motion for Mladic’s acquittal at the middle of the trial, the hearing about that request will be held in late January or early February, said judge Orie. He told Mladic’s Defence to be ready to begin its own evidence hearing in the same period.
The trial will resume on Tuesday.
