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PRELIMINARY
HEARING
Saturday, 17 November 1945
THE PRESIDENT The
Tribunal would like to know whether the Chief Prosecutors wish to make a
statement with reference to the Defendant Bormann.
SIR
DAVID MAXWELL-FYFE (Deputy Chief Prosecutor for the United Kingdom): May
it please the Tribunal, as the Tribunal are aware, the Defendant Bormann
was included in the Indictment, which was filed before the Tribunal.
There has been no change in the position with regard to the Defendant
Bormann; nor has any further information come to the notice of the Chief
Prosecutors. I think that the Tribunal are aware of the state of our
information when the Indictment was filed, but it might be as well, if
the Tribunal approves, if I explained what was the state of our
information at the time of the filing of the Indictment, which is also
the state of our information today.
There
is evidence that Hitler and Bormann were together, with a number of Nazi
officials, in the Chancellery area in Berlin on 30 April 1945, and were,
at one stage on that day, together in Hitler's underground air raid
shelter in the Chancellery gardens.
On
1 May Bormann and other Germans tried to break out of the Chancellery
area in a tank. They got as far as the river Spree and tried to cross a
bridge over it. A hand grenade was thrown into the tank by Russian
soldiers. Three members of the party who were with Bormann in this tank
have been interrogated. Two think. that Bormann was killed, and the
third that he was wounded. The position is, therefore, that the
Prosecution cannot say that the matter is beyond probability that
Bormann is dead. There is still the clear possibility that he is alive.
In these
circumstances I should submit that he comes within the exact words of
Article 12 of the Charter:
"The
Tribunal shall have the right to take proceedings against a person
charged with crimes set out in Article 6 of this Charter in his
absence, if he has not been found."
In
other words, it is not necessary to hold the man in these cumstances The
Tribunal laid down in its Rules of Procedure in Rule 2 (b) the procedure
applicable to this situation:
"Any
individual Defendant not in custody shall be informed of the
Indictment against him and of of his right to receive the
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