Special Prosecutor to present its documentary evidences and witnesses. It says that the Prosecutor submitted a list of 2500 witnesses and the hearing of witnesses started in January 1996. 202. The Respondent State argues that defense lawyers crossexamined the witnesses presented by the Prosecutor during the various levels examinations and it was not uncommon for a witness to come back to the court for several weeks because of the endless crossexaminations by the defendants and their defence counsels. It says that the court ordered the Special Prosecutor to present witnesses twice every week on Tuesdays and Thursdays considering the length of time it took to examine one witness as well as the large amount of evidences to be presented, an exercise which took many years. 203. The Respondent State avers that in the year 2000, after presenting 726 witnesses, the Special Prosecutor, convinced that justice would be delayed if the hearing of the large number of witnesses from all over the country continued, applied to the court to stop the presentation of witnesses and started presenting other documentary evidences. It says that the court accepted the application of the Special Prosecutor and the presentation of witnesses came to an end on June 2000. By then, the Respondsent State avers, the Special Prosecutor had presented 2,500 documentary evidences in 24 volumes with a 192 pages of explanation. In addition, it says, films, audios, and other technical evidences were presented against the defendants. However, the Respondent State say, the defendants were also given the evidence presented against them according to Article 20 (4) of the Federal Constitution as well as the criminal Procedure Code. The presentation of evidence was completed in December 2001 and the court set a date to review the files and render its verdict. 204. The Respondent State avers that after examining the charges and the evidence vis-à-vis the statements of defence brought by the defendants, the court issued a 587- page verdict on 21 January 2003, to prove the charges against the defendants. In its ruling, the Respondent State say, the court, then, called on the defendants to start their defenses and informed them that they could make defense statements in answer to the charges and call witnesses in their defence. 205. It says that one-year after the court‟s ruling, on 15 December 2003, the defendents brought a list of their own three hundered witnesses and documentary evidences. It argues that each defendant was alllowed to give his own testimony which was exceedingly long. The Respondent State says that 22 defendants presented 787 pages of documentary evidences, while those that opted to invidually present their own defence submited 1,416 pages of evidences. It says that the 47