Stanisic Defence Dismisses Paramilitary Links to SDB

The defence lawyer for Jovica Stanisic told the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague on Wednesday that the prosecution’s military expert, Reynaud Theunens, had not presented any evidence showing that the Bosnian Serb paramilitary forces, which overran towns in Bosnia in the spring of 1992, were linked to the Serbian State Security Service, SDB.

While admitting he had not found any direct documents confirming such associations, the expert witness maintained that men under the command of Zeljko Raznatovic “Arkan”, Dragan Vasiljkovic “Captain Dragan”, and other paramilitary forces, according to numerous other pieces of evidence, were under the control of the SDB, or were associated with it in some way.

The witness said that, judging by documents he had analysed, the Red Berets, which he called a formation of the SDB, also participated in taking Bosnian municipalities in 1992.

As proof for his allegation, he mentioned a statement by the leader of the Serbian Radical Party, SRS, Vojislav Seselj, indicating that, among others, a special unit of the SDB took part in the capture of Zvornik in eastern Bosnia April 1992.

During the cross-examination, Stanisic’s defence attorney, Wayne Jordash, attributed Seselj’s statement from 1993 to his conflict with Serbia’s then president, Slobodan Milosevic.

The military expert responded by saying that Seselj made a similar statement in 1995 as well.

The then chief of the SDB, Stanisic, and intelligence officer with the service, Franko Simatovic “Frenki” have been charged with persecution, murders, deportation and forcible transfer of the non-Serb population in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1991 to 1995.

Asked what evidence he had to prove that Arkan was associated with the SDB in March 1992, when his men overran the town of Bijeljina, the witness called on earlier reports by Yugoslav Army intelligence officers, who said Arkan’s men were linked to the Serbian SDB.

He said that, while conducting his own analysis, he had not found documents suggesting that the connection between Raznatovic’s men and other paramilitary forces with the SDB, which had existed in Croatia, “ceased to exist” in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“I have no concrete documents proving that the Serbian SDB sent Arkan to occupy Bijeljina, but he did not appear in that town accidentally. It was a part of a broader plan,” the prosecution expert said.

The expert gave a similar answer when asked about Arkan’s participation in the occupation of Zvornik, during which, according to the charges, Arkan’s men committed crimes against local Bosniaks [Muslims].

The witness maintained that the SDB, through those paramilitary forces and its own special units, helped Bosnian Serb forces achieve their strategic war goals, the most important of which was separation of Serbs from Croats and Bosniaks and the removal of the Bosnian border dividing Serbs along river Drina.

Stanisic’s defence attorney will continue cross-examining the military expert witness.

The crimes charged against Stanisic and his former assistant Simatovic were committed, according to prosecutors, during the execution of a joint criminal enterprise aimed at permanently and forcibly removing Croats and Bosniaks from large parts of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to achieve Serbian domination.

The prosecutors allege that the joint criminal enterprise was led by the then Serbian president, Milosevic.

Stanisic and Simatovic both pleaded not guilty in December 2015 after the appeals chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, overturned their acquittal in their first trial.

The appeals chamber ruled that there were serious legal and factual errors when Stanisic and Simatovic were acquitted of war crimes in 2013, and ordered the case to be retried and all the evidence and witnesses reheard in full.