If I understand this request of the Defense they wish the Court to ask to have handed to them documents of which some have been rejected by the Court itself as not having sufficient probative value or as not being sufficiently authenticated. The Tribunal will decide whether this request should be granted. As far as I am concerned, I must oppose this application with all my might because it would mean taking into account documents which did not offer a sufficiently authentic character for the examination we made, and which the Tribunal itself also made when we submitted to it some of these documents.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, but M. Dubost, the position is this: There were a large number of documents which the Counsel for the French Prosecution said that they had examined; and the French Prosecution, in the exercise of their discretion, thought it unnecessary to refer to more than a certain number of them; but it is only the French Prosecution which has exercised their discretion about those documents, and what Dr. Nelte is asking is to see them for the purpose of seeing whether there is anything in the documents which assists his case. Would the French Prosecution have any objection to that? I mean—it may be that some of the documents are no longer in the possession of the French Prosecution, but those that are in their possession, would the French Prosecution object to Dr. Nelte’s seeing those?
M. DUBOST: May I remind the Tribunal that the documents which we rejected were not rejected as useless in the beginning, but as not presenting sufficient guarantee as to their origin, as to the conditions under which we obtained them and as to their probative value.
The Tribunal will no doubt remember that a certain number of these documents were rejected by the Court itself. Those which we did not consider are of the same character as those documents which were rejected. We did not submit them because we could not tell you where, when, and how they had been discovered. For the most part, they are documents that fell into the hands of combat troops in battle, and under the terms of jurisprudence do not offer sufficient guarantee to be retained.
Insofar as they are still in my possession I am ready to communicate them to Defense Counsel, it being clearly understood that they will not attach to them any higher merit, any higher value than I did.
THE PRESIDENT: That may very well be. I think that all Dr. Nelte wants is to see any documents which you have brought to see whether he can find anything in them that he thinks may help the case of the defendant for whom he appears, and I understand you would not have any objection to his doing that.
M. DUBOST: I would only answer the Defense Counsel that some of those documents were rejected by your Tribunal when I presented them.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, of course, it would not apply to documents which have been rejected by the Court. Very well. We will not decide the matter now. We will consider it.
DR. NELTE: Would the Tribunal announce its decision regarding the first question which I brought up, namely, whether it is sufficient that I refer to documents which have been presented by the Prosecution without submitting them myself.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Sir David?