Jovica Stanisic’s refusal to follow the trial via video link today was interpreted as his waiver of the right to attend trial. The Trial Chamber ordered that the trial proceed in his absence. The prosecution indicated what and how it intended to prove at the trial of the former Serbian state security chiefs


Only Franko Simatovic was in the dock on the second day of the prosecution’s opening statement at the start of the trial of the former Serbian state security chiefs. The first-accused Jovica Stanisic was ‘too ill’ to appear in the courtroom, as he informed the Detention Unit deputy manager; Stanisic refused to sign a waiver of his right to attend the trial and to follow the trial via video link. The Detention Unit medical doctor then examined Stanisic and told the judges that Stanisic’s condition was the same as yesterday, when there were no ‘evident medical reasons preventing the accused from following the proceedings via video link’. According to the ‘modalities’ adopted for this trial, the Trial Chamber interpreted the refusal of the accused to follow the trial via video link as his waiver of the right to attend the trial and invited the prosecution to proceed with the opening statement that began yesterday.

The opening statement was almost identical to the one the prosecution delivered at the first start of the Stanisic and Simatovic trial on 28 and 29 April 2008. The only novelty was some quotes from Ratko Mladic’s notebook which has come to light in the meantime. Mladic speaks about the meetings with Milosevic, Stanisic, Martic and Fikret Abdic during Operation Spider and prior to the attack on Srebrenica in July 1995.

Prosecutors Dermot Groome and Doris Brehmeier-Metz outlined what evidence they would call on the crimes the Serbian state security special units committed ‘following a predictable pattern’ in the Krajina villages of Dubica, Bacin, Cerovljani, Saborsko and Skabrnja, on the murders in the villages of Dalj and Erdut in Eastern Slavonia and on the crimes committed from 1992 to 1995 in Bijeljina, Zvornik, Kozluk, Bosanski Samac, Doboj, Sanski Most and Trnovo in BH.

The prosecution will, as indicated, try to prove that the immediate perpetrators of those crimes, including Martic’s men, Captain Dragan’s Kninjas, Red Berets, Arkan’s Tigers, Seselj’s men and Scorpions, were in fact special units run by the Serbian State Security Service; the two accused have played major roles in ‘organizing, funding, equipping, training and command’ of those units.

Stanisic and Simatovic are indicted for taking part in a joint criminal enterprise headed by Slobodan Milosevic whose goal was the elimination of a substantial part of the non-Serb population, mainly Croats and Muslims, by violence, murder and persecution.

The defense teams have told the Trial Chamber they will not deliver their opening statements at this stage of the trial. The accused will not use their right under the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, to made statements. The prosecution is expected to call its first witness on 29 June 2009.

Sharing