International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Archives

The defence lawyer for former Serbian security official Franko Simatovic claimed that the Yugoslav People’s Army led by then colonel Ratko Mladic was responsible for crimes during an attack on a Croatian village in 1991. The defence lawyer for former Serbian security official Franko Simatovic, alas Frenki, who is being retried alongside his former Serbian Security Service chief Jovica Stanisic at the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, sought on Wednesday to shift blame for the 1991 crimes onto Ratko Mladic.

A prosecution witness told the retrial of former Serbian security chiefs Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic that Serb fighters killed 75 people, mostly civilians, during an attack on a Croatian village in 1991. Prosecution witness Marko Miljanic told the Mechanism for International Tribunals in The Hague on Tuesday that his father, brother and seven cousins were killed during the attack by the Yugoslav People’s Army, JNA on the Croatian village of Skabrnja in the Kninska Krajina area in 1991.

The defence for the former Serbian State Security official Franko Simatovic dismissed testimony given by a witness who said Simatovic delivered arms to the Croatian Serbs in 1990. Cross-examining a protected witness codenamed RFJ-066, Franko Simatovic's defence lawyer, Mihajlo Bakrac, said his client could not have transported around 400 rifles by two SUV cars that belonged to the Serbian Interior Ministry from Belgrade via Bosnia to Knin in Croatia, as the witness alleged during his main testimony in July.

Belgrade court found on Tuesday the retired Bosnian Serb general Marko Lugonja guilty of hiding the fugitive Ratko Mladic in his apartment in 2002. Belgrade Appellate Court has found Marko Lugonja,a retired Bosnian Serb army general, guilty of hiding fugitive Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic.

The retrial of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic, two former leaders of the Serbian State Security Service, SDB, for crimes in Croatia and Bosnia continues on Tuesday.

Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic urged the UN to allow Serbian citizens convicted of war crimes to serve their sentences in their home country, although this request was not granted when he asked in 2013. Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic asked UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday to enable Serbian citizens who have been convicted by the Hague Tribunal to serve their sentences in Serbia, because of alleged “inhumane conditions” in countries where they are being placed.

The Hague Tribunal has terminated proceedings against Jovo Ostojic, a member of Vojislav Seselj’s nationalist Serbian Radical Party who was wanted for alleged witness intimidation, after he died in June.

Former detention camp guard Goran Jelisic, who described himself as a ‘Serb Adolf Hitler’, was refused early release from prison, where he is serving 40 years for crimes against humanity.

In a new film, convicted war criminal Esad Landzo seeks out former prisoners who he abused when he was an 18-year-old during the Bosnian war in 1992, and asks them to forgive him.

The fear of another defendant dying in custody before his final verdict like Slobodan Milosevic has made the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague take unusual precautionary measures.

International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

Serbian Ex-Official Blames Mladic for Croatia Crimes

Serb Volunteer Fighters ‘Killed 75 in Croatian Village’

Simatovic Lawyer Denies he Brought Arms to Croatian Serbs

Bosnian Serb General Found Guilty of Hiding Mladic

Stanisic, Simatovic Retrial Resumes Before Tribunal

Belgrade Wants Serbian War Criminals Jailed in Serbia

UN Court Ends Case Against Serbian Radical

UN Court Refuses to Free ‘Serb Adolf’

A Bosnian War Criminal’s Quest for Forgiveness

Ailing Defendants Cause Headaches for Hague Tribunal

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