Reporters seek U.N. exemption from war-crimes testimony

By The Associated Press

10.07.02

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Editor's note: On Dec. 11, 2002, retired reporter Jonathan Randal won an appeal to the U.N. war crimes tribunal, which decided he would not have to testify in court. The five-judge panel said war correspondents should be allowed a limited exemption from being compelled to testify.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A coalition of some of the world's largest news groups asked the United Nations tribunal's highest court on Oct. 3 to grant reporters a limited exemption from testifying at war-crimes trials.

But U.N. prosecutors, arguing in what may become a test case for international law, objected to giving journalists a privileged status.

The arguments were presented to a five-judge appeals court hearing the case of former Washington Post reporter Jonathan Randal, who is seeking to be excused from testifying at the war-crimes trial of Bosnian Serb Radovan Brdjanin, whom he interviewed in 1993.

The judges have not set a date for their decision.

A group of 34 international media groups, including the Associated Press, The Washington Post, The New York Times and the British Broadcasting Corp., signed a statement supporting Randal's appeal, and were represented in the hearing as friends of the defendant.

Floyd Abrams, a Washington-based lawyer speaking for the media group, argued the dangers for reporters would increase and their neutrality would be perceived as compromised if they are liable to appear in court to testify against their sources.

Abrams said reporters should only be summoned when their evidence is essential to a case and cannot be gotten by any other means.

"This tribunal would not have come into existence at all if it were not for the work of reporters" who brought war crimes in Bosnia to the world's attention, Abrams said.

But U.N. prosecutor Joanna Korner said such a standard would be unfair to organizations like the International Red Cross, the U.N. and others international personnel who might witness war crimes, as well as ordinary civilians.

"We would argue that journalists are entitled to no special privileges," she said.

Brdjanin is accused of the persecution and expulsion of more than 100,000 non-Serbs during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. Randal was subpoenaed after Brdjanin denied a quote reported in the correspondent's interview saying he wanted to drastically reduce the number of Muslims living in his province of Bosnia.

A three-judge lower court ruled Randal must appear in court to verify the quote or be held in contempt of court. It noted that his testimony would not put him in danger and that he was not protecting a confidential source.

Randal's attorney, Geoffrey Robertson, said if journalists were forced to testify about crimes they had witnessed in war zones they would "be regarded not as civilians ... but as spies who operate on the side that is favored by the U.N. or by the U.N. Security Council."

Randal, who is retired, was not in court for the hearing.

Related

News organizations oppose war-crimes tribunal subpoena
New York Times, AP, CNN, BBC support Washington Post's resistance to demand that reporter testify in Yugoslavia.  08.27.02