Day 280 - 17 Jul 96 - Page 33


     
     1
     2   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, I have.
     3
     4   MR. RAMPTON:  Which I think was given us to on Friday.  It
     5        purports to do two things.  One is to respond to Mr.
     6        Morganti's fourth statement, and to some lesser extent his
     7        fifth statement, but largely speaking what it does is to
     8        provide a commentary on the first statement of Mr. Morganti
     9        which I identified as the places in Goias where the cattle
    10        were collected.
    11
    12   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
    13
    14   MR. RAMPTON:  He provided a list.  That fourth statement of Mr.
    15        Morganti was served on the 10th May, 1996.  The other thing
    16        that this statement purports to do in large part is to
    17        corroborate the oral evidence of Miss Bramford, who gave
    18        evidence on the 17th May, and your Lordship will remember
    19        that she, when giving her evidence from the witness box,
    20        gave a good deal of evidence that was not foreshadowed in
    21        her witness statement.  Without any immediate objection
    22        from me, and probably in response to what Mr. Morganti had
    23        said some days earlier in his fourth statement about the
    24        location of collection points in Goias.
    25
    26             We are now, I hope, coming very close to the
    27        portcullis which will prevent any further evidence of
    28        substance being given in this case.  I find therefore, and
    29        we find therefore, that this latest statement from
    30        Professor Hecht leaves us in a totally impossible
    31        position.  We would obviously like the opportunity to
    32        respond to it.  I would like, if this case were limitless
    33        in its duration, to send it to Brazil and get Mr. Morganti,
    34        and in all probability the Brazilian Governor, to respond
    35        to it.  I do not believe that your Lordship is going to
    36        allow me to do that.  If I could do it before the beginning
    37        of October, I do not know, it is winter in Brazil now so I
    38        do not know if they are on holiday or not, but I would do
    39        so, but I do not believe for a moment your Lordship will
    40        let me do that.  It plainly does, or might be thought to,
    41        require some kind of a response from people in Brazil.  The
    42        most likely candidate, I think, would be the Brazilian
    43        Governor, the Ministry of Agriculture.
    44
    45   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Does it not respond to Senor Morganti's fifth
    46        statement?
    47
    48   MR. RAMPTON:  To a very limited extent, my Lord, yes.  From
    49        paragraph 7.  But I think I am right in saying that Mr.
    50        Morganti's fifth statement was served in the middle of
    51        June, last month, responded to what Miss Bramford had said
    52        in the witness box as to the nature of the ranches in the
    53        regions about which she proposed, and this process is, in
    54        theory, endless.  One can conduct a game of electronic
    55        ping-pong across the Atlantic -- I will not say until the
    56        cows come home because that might be thought
    57        inappropriate.  But suppose I then go off and persuade your
    58        Lordship that I should be allowed to go off and serve this
    59        statement contradicting this latest statement from
    60        Professor Hecht and I serve it some time in September, the

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