Person: Simatovic Franko

An ex-member of the Red Berets unit testified that former Serbian security service official Franko Simatovic, who is on trial in The Hague, was its commander-in-chief in 1995 when it allegedly committed crimes.

Testifying at the Hague trial of former Serbian State Security chiefs Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic, a Serbian ex-policeman admitted personally setting houses on fire in a Bosniak village in 1993. Testifying as a protected prosecution witness, the former Serbian policeman told Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic’s trial at the Mechanism for International Tribunals in The Hague on Thursday that he was involved in a “clean-up” operation in villages near the small town of Skelani in eastern Bosnia in March 1993, when houses were torched.

The defence for Jovica Stanisic denied that the Red Berets unit was associated with the Serbian State Security Service, SDB – while a Hague prosecution expert witness maintained that they were the Serbian service’s special forces.

A lawyer for former Serbian State Security chief Jovica Stanisic told his trial that the prosecution’s expert had not presented any evidence confirming ties between Serbian paramilitaries in Bosnia and the Serbian security service.