Help from the State Security Service

During the cross-examination at Radovan Karadzic’s trial Milan Martic denies the prosecutor’s allegations about a joint criminal enterprise aimed at creating a unified Serbian state by persecuting the non-Serb population from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

While being cross-examined by Prosecutor Alan Tieger, Martic confirmed that, as per his request, members of the State Security Service, SDB, of Serbia undertook activities in self-declared Republic of Serbian Krajina, RSK, during the war.
 
Prosecutor Tieger presented Martic with several documents, in which the witness and Serbian SDB Chief Jovica Stanisic mentioned the creation of “a unified Serbian state” as an ultimate goal.
 
“You are interpreting it in your own way,” Martic said, adding that, following the secession of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbs, who lived in those republics, just wanted to fulfill their right to self-determination.
 
The Hague Tribunal previously pronounced a second instance verdict against Martic, former Minister of Internal Affairs and President of the Republic of Serbian Krajina, RSK, to 35 years in prison for persecuting Croats from Knin frontier and conducting rocket attacks on Zagreb.
 
The Prosecutor then reproduced a part of a recording taken during an anniversary celebration of the Special Operations Unit with the Serbian SDB in 1997. The recording depicts Franko Simatovic, also known as Frenki, the first Commander of that Unit, saying that “the red berets”, consisting of “members of SDB, RSK police and volunteers”, undertook operations in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, adding that “26 training camps” of the Unit were based there.
 
Martic said that he formed the first camp in Golubic, near Knin, adding that he knew about the camps in Eastern Slavonia.
 
Tieger then reproduced a recording taken during a celebration in the camp in Golubic in the spring of 1992, depicting Martic, Zeljko Raznatovic, known as Arkan, who gave a speech, and the then JNA colonel Ratko Mladic, as well as members of “the truncated” Presidency of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, SFRJ, Sejdo Bajramovic and Jugoslav Kostic.
 
“I do not see anything wrong in the fact that some other people were present and that some of them gave speeches,” Martic said, commenting on the recording.
 
The Tribunal is yet due to pronounce a verdict against Stanisic and Simatovic, while Mladic is on trial for genocide and other crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina. An indictment was filed against Raznatovic, but he was killed in Belgrade prior to being extradited to the Hague.
 
Responding to the prosecutor’s questions, Martic confirmed that he was Minister of Police of RSK in 1991 and that Radoslav Kostic, member of the Serbian SDB, was his Assistant.
 
Confirming that Kostic and his associate Ilija Kojic, another member of the Serbian secret police, were subordinate to Stanisic, Martic said: “I wanted those people to help me, so they sent them to me at my request”.
 
When asked whether the Serbian SDB sent first instructor Dragan Vasiljkovic, known as Captain Dragan, to the camp in Golubic in 1991, Martic said:
 
“All those things happened after Prime Minister Milan Babic had sent a request to President Slobodan Milosevic and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia, asking them to send their men to us in order to help train our forces”.
 
During the additional examination Karadzic suggested and Martic repeated that Serbian leaders in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina tried to “preserve Yugoslavia” in order to protect themselves from “neo-fascist” authorities in Zagreb and Muslim “fundamentalism” in Bosnia. The witness said that the joint criminal enterprise, which was charged upon the two of them, was “just a fiction”.
 
Following the examination of Martic, Karadzic presented the judges with ballistic expert Zorica Subotic, who denied the findings of Prosecution’s ballistic expert Berko Zecevic about the explosions of modified air-bombs in Sarajevo. Subotic is due to continue testifying tomorrow.  

The trial of Karadzic, who is charged with genocide in Srebrenica, persecution of Muslims and Croats throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, terror against civilians in Sarajevo and taking UNPROFOR members hostage, is due to continue on May 14.