Taylor Trial Transcripts
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Case No. SCSL-2003-01-T THE PROSECUTOR OF THE SPECIAL COURT V. CHARLES GHANKAY TAYLOR MONDAY, 14 JULY 2008 9.30 A.M. TRIAL TRIAL CHAMBER II Before the Judges: Justice Teresa Doherty, Presiding Justice Richard Lussick Justice Julia Sebutinde Justice Al Hadji Malick Sow, Alternate For Chambers: Mr Simon Meisenberg Ms Doreen Kiggundu For the Registry: Ms Rachel Irura For the Prosecution: Ms Brenda J Hollis Mr Mohamed A Bangura Ms Maja Dimitrova For the accused Charles Ghankay Mr Courtenay Griffiths QC Taylor: Mr Terry Munyard Mr Morris Anyah CHARLES TAYLOR Page 13558 14 JULY 2008 OPEN SESSION 1 Monday, 14 July 2008 2 [Open session] 3 [The accused present] 4 [Upon commencing at 9.30 a.m.] 09:20:09 5 PRESIDING JUDGE: Good morning. I note some changes of 6 appearance. Mr Bangura, good morning. 7 MR BANGURA: Good morning Madam President, good morning 8 your Honours, good morning counsels opposite. Your Honours, for 9 the Prosecution this morning: Ms Brenda J Hollis; myself, 09:29:09 10 Mohamed A Bangura; and Ms Maja Dimitrova. Thank you, your 11 Honours. 12 PRESIDING JUDGE: Thank you, Mr Bangura. Mr Munyard? 13 MR MUNYARD: Good morning your Honours, good morning 14 counsel opposite. On the Defence bench this morning is Courtenay 09:29:25 15 Griffiths QC, myself and Morris Anyah. 16 PRESIDING JUDGE: Thank you, Mr Munyard. If there are no 17 other matters I will remind the witness of his oath? No. 18 Mr Witness, good morning. 19 THE WITNESS: Good morning, sir. 09:29:39 20 WITNESS: TF1-388 [On former oath] 21 PRESIDING JUDGE: I remind you again this morning, as I 22 have done other mornings, that you are under oath, you have taken 23 the oath to tell the truth, it is still binding on you and you 24 must answer questions truthfully. Do you understand? 09:29:53 25 THE WITNESS: Okay, ma'am. 26 PRESIDING JUDGE: Good. Please proceed, Mr Bangura. 27 MR BANGURA: Thank you, your Honour. Your Honour, just 28 before I proceed with the witness's testimony, I wish to go to an 29 issue that came up on Friday to do with disclosure. This was a SCSL - TRIAL CHAMBER II CHARLES TAYLOR Page 13559 14 JULY 2008 OPEN SESSION 1 matter that was raised by my colleague on the other side and it 2 had to do with the evidence by the witness on the activities of 3 Sam Bockarie as well as the witness's presence in Ivory Coast and 4 Burkina Faso. Your Honours, the counsel was very clear about the 09:30:40 5 fact that he was intrigued, he said, by the sort of evidence 6 which the Prosecution was leading at that point and that there 7 had not been disclosure, or sufficient disclosure of those 8 matters. 9 Your Honour, I will go to the record and state what counsel 09:30:56 10 said and then just indicate to the Court and provide to the Court 11 what the Prosecution had in fact given to the Defence prior to 12 this witness's testimony in court. Your Honours, at page 13504, 13 line 29, counsel says: 14 "Your Honours, before we move on I am intrigued to know 09:31:28 15 that Mr Bangura can spell this town, Seguela. Unless I have 16 missed something there is nothing at all in the disclosure about 17 this, where they went in Burkina Faso, where they went in Cote 18 d'Ivoire. There's a very small amount indeed of information. 19 "Now as it appears on the face of it my learned friend - 09:31:51 20 unless I have missed it and I accept that I'm fallible and might 21 have done. It appears on the face of it that there is more 22 material that this witness has - information this witness has 23 given to the Prosecution that we have not been given any advance 24 indication of at all and I wonder if my assumption is correct." 09:32:16 25 PRESIDING JUDGE: Yes, I do recall that exchange, 26 Mr Bangura. 27 MR BANGURA: Your Honours, this went on and further my 28 learned friend - this is at page 13506, lines 5 through to 22. 29 PRESIDING JUDGE: I do recall what he said, thank you. SCSL - TRIAL CHAMBER II CHARLES TAYLOR Page 13560 14 JULY 2008 OPEN SESSION 1 MR BANGURA: Right. Your Honours, the position is that in 2 fact the Prosecution had before this witness's testimony provided 3 not as my learned friend put it a handful of lines. In fact my 4 learned friend said that it was an exaggeration to say that we 09:32:53 5 provided a handful of paragraphs. He said there were just a 6 handful of lines. Your Honours, what we provided to the Defence 7 is sufficient enough and contained basically all the information 8 that the witness testified to in court. I will just refer your 9 Honours to what was provided to the Defence. 09:33:15 10 In proofing note which we disclosed to the Defence on 4 11 March 2008 we had from paragraph 12 of those notes through to 12 paragraph 19 matters covering the period that Sam Bockarie was in 13 Ivory Coast, it appeared that the witness and others who joined 14 him in Ivory Coast were, as well as the activities in the Ivory 09:33:45 15 Coast. Your Honours, in particular paragraphs 17 to 19 of those 16 notes deal with areas in the Ivory Coast which are featured in 17 the map that was used by the witness and the spelling 18 specifically in the map are those that the witness had given in 19 court. 09:34:08 20 So my learned friend should not be saying that they were 21 surprised by what was coming out in evidence in court. Your 22 Honours, when these sort of matters go down on record it tends to 23 give the impression that the Prosecution is overlooking matters 24 which they ought to be looking - on issues of disclosure and it 09:34:29 25 is important that the records be put right on this matter. The 26 Defence had more than enough of what the witness testified about 27 and it is definitely not correct as my learned friend put it in 28 court on Friday. 29 PRESIDING JUDGE: Are you therefore saying that you have SCSL - TRIAL CHAMBER II CHARLES TAYLOR Page 13561 14 JULY 2008 OPEN SESSION 1 conformed with the provisions of disclosure under the rules? 2 MR BANGURA: Yes, your Honour, we have fully and completely 3 conformed with our obligations. Your Honours, just to be more 4 specific on for instance the spellings that my learned friend was 09:35:06 5 referring to, paragraph 19 of the disclosure of the notes that we 6 provided had spellings like Seguela, Man, Danane, Bangolo. 7 PRESIDING JUDGE: I don't know that the spelling is - 8 although it is important it is not the legal issue to my mind. 9 To my mind the legal issue is to ensure that you have conformed 09:35:31 10 to the disclosure obligations and in the light of your 11 submission, Mr Bangura, I will ask Mr Munyard to reply. Thank 12 you. 13 MR MUNYARD: Madam President, if you look at what I was 14 saying on Friday, I was asking the Prosecution if they had gone 09:35:47 15 into this sort of detail and I acknowledged I might have missed 16 it. I can tell you now I was looking, as I was following that 17 evidence, at the previous day's lengthy proofing session or the 18 -- 19 PRESIDING JUDGE: That would be 3 March. 09:36:07 20 MR MUNYARD: Yes, that was on 3 March where there is an 21 account of this trip to la Cote d'Ivoire and it doesn't include 22 some of those names. I accept now my learned friend has pointed 23 us to the following day where there was yet another more than 19 24 paragraphs of evidence, some of it covering the same ground yet 09:36:26 25 again. 26 The difficulty for us is we are being supplied with notes - 27 proofing notes - covering the same issues again and again and 28 again and it is sometimes difficult to find the detail in there 29 because on occasion the proofing notes will correct or contradict SCSL - TRIAL CHAMBER II CHARLES TAYLOR Page 13562 14 JULY 2008 OPEN SESSION 1 what has gone before. All I was doing on Friday was saying, 2 "Well, I can't see it in what I'm looking at, maybe I've missed 3 it". And it appears I had missed it, but I was making it quite 4 clear I was asking for guidance from the Prosecution where in the 09:37:04 5 numerous different accounts of this particular part of the 6 witness's evidence is this material. I had hoped that I would 7 have been taken to it then. I wasn't. I was relying on the 8 previous day's notes, or that was how I was following the 9 evidence, at any rate, on Friday. 09:37:22 10 PRESIDING JUDGE: I see, Mr Munyard, but it appears 11 therefore that there has been conforming with the provisions of 12 Rule 66, albeit somewhat belaboured to your view.