Day 187 - 13 Nov 95 - Page 02
1 Monday, 13th November, 1995
2
3 MR. MORRIS: The witness is here and I would like to call him.
4
5 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Mr. Rampton, are you happy with the
6 translation of Mr. Lamti's statement?
7
8 MR. RAMPTON: I am sorry, my Lord?
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Are you happy with the translation of
11 Mr. Lamti's statement?
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13 MR. RAMPTON: I am not 100 per cent happy with it, no.
14 Fortunately, I can read a bit of French, and so I have been
15 using the original. So I am quite happy with that
16 translation, if that is the one that is to be read, to be
17 left as it is.
18
19 My Lord, before Mr. Morris calls his witness, I do not know
20 if your Lordship has been given this bundle of papers,
21 handed to us about 10 minutes ago, quarter of an hour,
22 called "French documents", all in French.
23
24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: One of them, I notice, is a corrected
25 translation. It still does not have the beginning of
26 Mr. Lamti's French statement on it.
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28 MR. RAMPTON: No.
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30 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It starts halfway -- well, it starts with the
31 second sentence, rather than the first; not that that need
32 matter very much, because I can see what it is the French.
33
34 The point is, I have not checked through the French one
35 word for word. I am not going to pick on particular
36 places; and it may well not make much difference at the end
37 of the day. I am no great French scholar; I can read a
38 French newspaper and I can speak a bit of it and understand
39 it when it is spoken, to a certain extent. But the flavour
40 is a bit different; it has been translated into rather more
41 abrupt English than the French would show. It may not
42 matter at the end of the day. I have not read through the
43 corrections.
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45 MR. RAMPTON: Nor have I. I have just been given them.
46
47 MR. MORRIS: Can I explain the situation of the translations?
48 The new documents as served should replace the old
49 documents. First of all, the French of Mr. Lamti's
50 statement is clearer than the copy that was served before.
51 Secondly, the translation, which is at page A5, was
52 originally done by somebody else rather than Suna Scutcher,
53 who is here as a translator. She can inform the court
54 about her qualifications. She just checked it last night,
55 because that was the first opportunity we had, really, to
56 show her the material. She made the corrections, so that
57 there were not any inaccuracies in the statement. But,
58 obviously, the grammar was largely due to the original
59 translator, who is not accredited, so that is why his name
60 was not used. So that is, as far as she could see, an
