Hague Tribunal Extends Jovica Stanisic’s Release
This post is also available in: Bosnian
The trial chamber at the UN court said on Monday that it has decided to extend Stanisic’s provisional release despite opposition from the prosecution, which argued that the presence of the defendant at the trial was necessary “in the interest of justice”.
The prosecution also claimed that that the Belgrade authorities were not providing the court with complete information about the defendant’s health condition.
Stanisic, the former chief of the Serbian State Security Service, has been living in Belgrade since July 21 after being granted provisional release because of his continuing health problems.
He attended the first part of his retrial in The Hague, which began on June 13.
According to earlier findings by physicians in The Hague and Belgrade, Stanisic suffers from a chronic intestinal disease and depression.
In the new decision, the judges said that “independent experts” should examined Stanisic in Belgrade and prepare “a detailed assessment of Stanisic’s health condition and efficiency of the current medical treatment”.
The independent specialists will be able to recommend different treatment should they consider it necessary, and express their views about the availability of the therapy in Serbia, the Hague Detention Unit or elsewhere in the Netherlands.
The independent experts are to submit their report on Stanisic’s health to the court by November 15.
The trial chamber also ordered the doctors from the Belgrade Military Medical Academy who are involved in Stanisic’s medical treatment to continue informing the court regularly about his condition.
Stanisic and his former State Security Service assistant Franko Simatovic, alias Frenki, are being retried for the persecution, murders, deportation and forcible resettlement of Croat and Bosniak civilians during the wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Stanisic and Simatovic both pleaded not guilty in December last year after the appeals chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia overturned their acquittal in their first trial.
The appeals chamber ruled that there were serious legal and factual errors when Stanisic and Simatovic were initially acquitted of war crimes in 2013, and ordered the case to be retried and all the evidence and witnesses reheard in full by new judges.
The trial continues on Tuesday.
