Serbian Paramilitary Arkan ‘Shot Captive in Head’

“Following the death of one of Arkan’s lieutenants, captives were brought. I saw Arkan take a pistol and shoot one of them directly in his forehead. One of Arkan’s men hit another captive and stabbed him in the back with a knife after finding a bayonet on him,” witness RFJ-120 said.

The witness said he was forced to work with Raznatovic’s paramilitary unit, the Tigers, in Croatia and Belgrade as well as in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1995 to 1997.

He said he heard from members of the Tigers that they had killed and deported Bosniaks and Croats from various locations in Croatia and Bosnia, such as Vukovar and Zvornik, since 1991.

“The soldiers told me, after drinking some alcohol, that they committed big crimes and expelled Croats from Vukovar… and committed mass murders and gave beatings in Bijeljina and Zvornik,” RFJ-120 testified.

He also said that in March 1996, Arkan’s men took him to a well near the Tigers’ base in Erdut in the Eastern Slavonia area of Croatia, and told him to fill it in and camouflage it because it was a mass grave of victims from Vukovar.

“I heard that Arkan’s men had done it, that those people had been killed at that place and that it must not be noticed. So we covered it with branches and land,” he said.

While in the base in Erdut, where he worked from October 1995, the witness heard about a visit by Simatovic from some people who ordered special food to be prepared for the Belgrade security official. However, he did not personally see Simatovic.

According to the charges, Stanisic, the former chief of the Serbian State Security Service, and Simatovic, who was his assistant, were protagonists in a joint criminal enterprise led by Slobodan 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 Arkan’s paramilitary group and the Red Berets unit, which the prosecution claims were controlled by the Serbian State Security Service.

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.