Yugoslav Army Ran Paramilitaries, Claims Serbian Ex-Official

Defence lawyer Wayne Jordash told Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic’s retrial at the Mechanism for International Tribunals in The Hague on Tuesday that the paramilitary units were commanded by Yugoslav People’s Army, JNA soldiers during the war in Croatia, contrary to a prosecution witness’s testimony.

But the witness, Belgrade journalist Dejan Anastasijevic, maintained his allegation that the Serbian State Security SDB, which was led by Stanisic, controlled the paramilitary groups he saw in Croatia’s Eastern Slavonia area in the autumn of 1991, such as Zeljko ‘Arkan’ Raznatovic’s ‘Tigers’ and Vojislav Seselj’s ‘Chetniks’.

According to Anastasijevic’s testimony, Stanisic and Simatovic were carrying out Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic’s plan to “set up new borders between republics”.

During the cross-examination of Anastasijevic, Stanisic’s defence lawyer Jordash asked “who Arkan had to answer to” during the JNA attack on the Croatian town of Vukovar in the summer and autumn of 1991.

“My impression was that he did not answer to anyone, although, formally, he was supposed to answer to [Croatian Serb leader] Goran Hadzic, because he introduced himself as his adviser,” the witness responded.

Anastasijevic did not fully agree with the defence lawyer’s suggestion that the JNA commanded the Vukovar operation, saying that it appeared to be so “on paper”, but “in practice it was completely different”.

When asked who issued the orders and what the command structure looked like, the witness said he did not know.

Jordash then presented a statement by JNA general Zivota Panic to the court which said that “Arkan’s Tigers, Seselj’s Chetniks and all those formations were under my command”.

“It is hard for me to believe that Arkan was under military control… He personally never said he was under the command of the JNA,” Anastasijevic responded.

Commenting on Panic’s claim that Raznatovic’s and Seselj’s paramilitaries “obeyed orders” and “fought with honour” in Vukovar when it was besieged and seized by Belgrade’s forces, the witness said: “That is not what I saw in Vukovar… Seselj’s Chetniks were not under the control of the JNA, they mistreated and robbed civilians.”

Anastasijevic also recalled a statement by general Andrija Biorcevic, who said that JNA artillery shelled settlements in Eastern Slavonia into which “Arkan then went and killed all those who had not surrendered”.

According to the charges, Stanisic, the former chief of the Serbian SDB, and his former assistant Simatovic were protagonists in a joint criminal enterprise led by Milosevic aimed at permanently and forcibly removing Bosniaks and Croats from large parts of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to achieve Serb domination.

Stanisic and Simatovic are charged with persecution, murders and deportations in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which according to the charges were committed by members of the Red Berets and other units controlled by the Serbian SDB.

Stanisic and Simatovic both pleaded not guilty in December 2015 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 Wednesday.