In the first part of his opening statement at the trial of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic, the prosecutor has described the creation of the special units run by the Serbian State Security Service. Those units ‘operated outside of the law, under Milosevic’s dictate’, in order to ‘protect not only the interests of Serbia but also of Serbs outside Serbia’. Stanisic has refused to follow the start of the trial today


Prosecutor Dermot Groome started his opening statement at the trial of the two former Serbian State Security Service chiefs by quoting the first accused Jovica Stanisic: in a telegram in July 1994 he announced that ‘the decisive stage in the struggle for the achievement of the common goal of all Serb lands lies ahead’.

The key topic of the trial of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic, the prosecution has indicated, will be the ‘common goals of the Serb lands’: what they were and who wanted to achieve them, what methods were used and whether war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed in the effort to achieve them.

According to the prosecution, Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic were ‘willing and key participants in the joint criminal enterprise’ headed by Slobodan Milosevic, whose goal was to the remove a substantial part of the non-Serbs, mostly Croats and Muslims, from areas in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by violence, murder and persecution.

The prosecutor holds Stanisic and Simatovic responsible for ‘the organization, training, financing and control of the members of the special units under the Serbian State Security Service, who committed serious crimes in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The special units were first created on the day in 1991 when the Serbian president gave Stanisic the task to set up a secret force that would ‘protect not only the interests of Serbia but those of Serbs outside Serbia’, Groome noted, adding that they ‘did not operate under the law but according to Milosevic’s dictates’. "

The first such unit was set up in May 1991 in Knin. It was led by Dragan Vasiljkovic known as Captain Dragan. The prosecutor listed special units run by the Serbian State Security Service in his opening statement: the Special Operations Unit (JSO), Anti-Terrorist Units (JATD) and Special Purposes. He also included Arkan’s Serbian Volunteer Guard and Tigers, Captain Dragan’s Kninjas, Martic’s men, Seselj’s men, Red Berets and Scorpions. Showing the infamous clip of the blessing of the Scorpions in Djeletovci before they headed out to the frontline in BH in July 1995, the prosecutor noted it was particularly shocking to realize that those are not ‘paramilitary renegades or a bunch of criminals’, but ‘a well-organized and equipped special unit of the Serbian State Security Service’ whose personnel had ‘a license to kill’.

Stanisic and Simatovic are charged with the crimes committed by members of those units in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina from May 1991 until December 1995. The indictment against them charges them with persecution on political, racial and religious grounds, murder, deportation and forcible transfer of the population. Those crimes, the prosecutor said, ‘were not just an accident within the joint criminal enterprise, but its integral part’.

The prosecution will continue its opening statement tomorrow, and should call its first witness on 29 June.

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