prijava
THE HAGUE/SARAJEVO, May 24 (FENA) - The defense at the war crimes trial of former Serbian State Security official Franko Simatović insisted he was not in command of the Red Berets unit in 1995 when it allegedly committed crimes.
Franko Simatović’s defense lawyer told the Mechanism for International Tribunals in The Hague on Thursday that the former Serbian State Security official did not give orders to the Red Berets during wartime in 1995.
Under cross-examination, a protected prosecution witness codenamed RF-150 - a former member of Red Berets - confirmed that Simatović had never given an order to him personally or to his unit.
The orders had come from chiefs “ranked below Franko”, RF-150 said.
However, the witness added: “I heard from instructors that [head of Serbian State Security] Jovica Stanišić was the main boss, while Simatović was his special advisor and commander of our instructors.”
He insisted that the instructors and the unit’s commanders called Simatović “the chief commander, the top figure”.
Stanišić and his former State Security Service deputy Simatović are on trial for persecution, murders and deportations during the wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
According to the charges, the Red Berets were under the control of the Serbian State Security Service.
The indictment alleges that Stanišić and Simatović committed their crimes as part of a joint criminal enterprise aimed at forcibly and permanently removing Croats and Bosniaks from large parts of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which would then be incorporated into a unified Serb state.
Defense lawyer Vladimir Petrović claimed that Simatović’s meeting with members of the Red Berets, which the witness described in court on Tuesday, was held in December 1995 - after the war in the former Yugoslavia had been ended by the Dayton Peace Agreement.
The witness confirmed this, also saying this was the only occasion in which he personally saw or heard Simatović.
Stanišić and Simatović 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 Stanišić and Simatović 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 next Tuesday, BIRN reports.
(FENA) S. R.
