News organizations oppose war-crimes tribunal subpoena
By The Associated Press
08.27.02
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — International news organizations are supporting The Washington Post as it contests a decision by the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal that a retired reporter must testify before it.
A brief submitted to the court on behalf of 34 organizations on Aug. 17 and released yesterday seeks to protect journalists reporting from war zones from subpoenas.
The media groups urged the tribunal "to recognize a qualified privilege for journalists not to be compelled to testify about their news gathering before this court unless certain conditions are met — namely that the information is absolutely essential to the case and that it cannot be obtained by any other means."
The group — including Cable News Network, the Associated Press, The New York Times and the British Broadcasting Corp. — asked a five-member appeals panel to reconsider a subpoena issued by a lower court against former Washington Post correspondent Jonathan Randal.
"Whatever the standard applied by this court is, it will set a precedent, not only in courts, but also on the battlefield," the 32-page brief stated.
Randal has been ordered to testify in the trial of Radoslav Brdjanin, a Bosnian Serb charged with genocide in Bosnia.
"Forcing journalists to testify against their sources (confidential or otherwise) will make future sources more hesitant to talk to the press, particularly in war zones," the document said.
A three-member trial chamber had found that Randal had no grounds on which to refuse to testify and that his case didn't involve freedom of the press.
The ruling stated that the reporter had insufficient grounds to refuse to testify against Brdjanin because Randal wasn't in any danger and had already revealed his source.
Randal is the first journalist to refuse to give evidence at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, established in 1993 by the United Nations to try Balkan war-crimes suspects.
It is also the first time that news organizations have intervened in hearings at the U.N. court, which is handling the landmark case against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
The legal action comes as prosecutors prepared to call a BBC journalist who agreed to testify against Milosevic in a public session this week.