At the trial of former chief of Serbian state security Jovica Stanisic and his assistant Franko Simatovic, the prosecution has sought permission to tender into evidence Serbian state security payroll lists showing payments were made to paramilitaries


As we await the resumption of the trial of Jovica Stanisic, former chief of Serbian state security service, and his assistant Franko Simatovic the prosecution today sought leave to extend the list of its exhibits to include 86 additional ‘very important’ documents.

Most documents, it is indicated, are lists confirming the payments made by the Serbian state security service to the members of the Service’s special units or to units ‘related to the SDB’. According to the prosecution, this includes the Special Purpose Units, Anti-Terrorist Units, Special Police Units, Special Operations Units – known as the Red Berets, the Scorpions and Arkan’s Tigers. All payments were made from 1990 to 1995, the period relevant for the indictment against Stanisic and Simatovic.

The prosecution maintains that the documents are relevant for the case against the two accused as they ‘prove a close connection’ between the SDB and the special units. At the same time, the prosecution notes, those documents confirm that paramilitary units were ‘under direct control of the Serbian SDB which paid salaries to members of Scorpions and Arkan’s Serb Volunteer Guard’.

In its motion to the Trial Chamber, the prosecutor explains that the new evidence is a selection from the 640 documents the prosecution received from the Serbian authorities in 2008.

The trial of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic, charged with crimes committed by the Serb police and paramilitaries in Croatia and BH from 1991 to 1995, was suspended in May 2008. Because of the ill health of the first accused, the date for the resumption of the proceedings is not yet known.

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