Two former allies of the late Serbian President Slobodan Miloevic were convicted Wednesday by a United Nations court of aiding and abiding crimes in Bosnia committed in 1992 by Serb paramilitaries.
This is the first time that a U.N court has convicted a Serbian official of their involvement in crimes committed in Bosnia.
The court found insufficient evidence to convict them for similar crimes in Bosnia and Croatia, as the former Yugoslavia was violently disintegrated in 1990.
Franko Simatovic and Jovica Stanisic were both convicted of helping and abetting murder, deportation and forcible transfer, as well as persecution in Bosanski Samac. Each was sentenced to 12 year imprisonment. You can appeal the judgment.
Stanisic was the former head of Serbia’s State Security Service. Simatovic was an intelligence officer with the service.
“The trial chamber is satisfied with the fact that the accused provided practical aid which had a substantial impact on the commissions of the crimes murder, forcible displacement, and persecution committed at Bosanski Samac. They were also aware of their actions,” Burton Hall, the presided judge, stated.
Hall stated that paramilitaries and Serb forces took control of the northern Bosnian town in April 1992.
Hall stated that “numerous crimes were committed against non-Serb populations… including looting and rape, and the destruction or religious buildings and cultural heritage.” He said that Bosnian Croats and Muslims from Bosnia were forced to be held in detention centers, where they were tortured, killed and kept in inhumane conditions.
Judges who claimed that prosecutors failed to prove crucial elements of the crime links acquitted Stanisic, Simatovic in 2013. Appeal judges in 2015 quashed the not guilty verdicts and ordered the retrial at the U.N. International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals.
Wednesday’s verdicts are the last U.N. prosecution in The Hague, for crimes committed during Yugoslavia’s bloody disintegration.
Serge Brammertz was the court’s chief procuror. He stated in a statement, that his office would review the judgment and decide if there are grounds for appeal.
Brammertz stated that Simatovic and Stanisic were senior officials of the State Security Service of the Republic of Serbia and contributed to the commission of crimes committed by paramilitary and other armed forces in support of ethnic cleansing campaigns against non Serbs.
Wayne Jordash Stanisic’s lawyer said that he would appeal.
He said, “They found one incident within a municipality and the evidence of that was poor.” “And it seems like a cynical compromis that we have to figure out a way to convict him in order to justify putting an individual on trial for 18 year.”
Prosecutors claimed that the defendants were part a “joint crime enterprise” of top Serbian officials, to forcibly expel non-Serbs from parts of Croatia and Bosnia.
The judges stated that they believed the enterprise existed and that Stanisic was aware of it. However, they said that prosecutors have not proved beyond reasonable doubt that they participated in it.
Munira Subasic is the leader of the Mothers of Srebrenica group of Bosnian survivors. She welcomed the decision that a Serbian plan was in place to drive non-Serbs from Bosnia.
She stated that Serbia is responsible for the wars in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and there was no way Serbia could absolve herself of this.
The appeals judges of the same court confirmed the convictions of former Bosnian Serb military head Ratko Maladic for his role atrocities during the Bosnian War and upheld Mladic’s life sentence.
Natasa Kandic is a prominent Serbian rights activist who was also the former head for the Humanitarian Law Fund. She described the verdict “very important” as it is the last Hague Trial and “the accused and sentenced persons belong to the best institution in Serbia.”
Iva Vukusic is a Utrecht University historian who stated that the prosecution against Simatovic and Stanisic, who were originally sent by The Hague in 2003 to face trial, took too long.
She said that she believes this case shows us that international justice is not a viable solution if it wants to be. It’s been too long in making.
It offered the opportunity to pass the first international court judgment on Serbia’s involvement in the wars.
Milosevic was indicted in a larger indictment for fomenting crimes during the Balkan Wars, but he was killed in his cell at The Hague in 2006, before any judges could render verdicts.
