The second prosecution witness at the Stanisic and Simatovic trial, former SDS official from Vukovar Borivoje Savic, described Belgrade’s role in the effort to organize and arm the Serbs in Croatia in 1991. As Savic said, Stanisic’s weapons arrived on the eve of the conflict and Seselj provided personnel support on Milosevic’s order. The trial continues in Stanisic’s absence


The first part of today’s hearing at the trial of former Serbian State Security Service chiefs Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic went on in closed session. The hearing went into open session in the middle of the evidence given by Borivoje Savic, the second prosecution witness and former secretary in the SDS in Vukovar. Savic testified about his ties with Serbian politicians from Eastern Slavonia and Knin, about the effort to organize and arm the Serbs in Croatia and the role played by Slobodan Milosevic, Vojislav Seselj and the accused Jovica Stanisic in those events.

Describing the mood among the Serbs in Croatia before the war, Savic said that he and the other SDS people from Slavonia and Zagreb advocated a more moderate approach than the Krajina hardliners. To corroborate this, Savic spoke about a meeting on 30 March 1991 in Obrovac when he and other people from Slavonia, supported by some Serbs from Zagreb, asked Milan Babic to sit down at the negotiating table with the Croatian leadership. In Savic’s words, Babic refused this, saying that there ‘can be no negotiations with the Ustasha’. As Babic didn’t propose any other solution, Savic got the impression that the Knin politicians ‘didn’t know what they wanted or what they were doing’.

The very next day, on 31 March 1991, there was an incident at the Plitvice lakes. A Croatian police officer was killed and a number of them were seriously wounded. Some thirty persons, including the witness and Goran Hadzic, were arrested. Savic was soon set free and was brought to Borovo Selo escorted by the Croatian interior minister Boljkovac and his deputy Degoricija. At the entrance to the village Savic saw the roadblocks and unknown armed men with bandanas on their faces.

Savic recounted how he visited Vukasin Soskocanin who claimed he was the ‘leader of the Serb people’ in that area. ‘Who are those fools at the entrance to the village’, Savic asked Soskocanin. Soskocanin told Savic that they were ‘Seselj’s help’, the men who had ‘crossed the Danube to defend the village’. Soskocanin had previously told Savic that he had been in Belgrade with Slobodan Milosevic who promised Soskocanin that Serbia would stand behind its fellow Serbs in Croatia and the assistance would be provided via Seselj. The ‘help’ from Serbia started in mid 1990 when a man by the name of Ilija Kojic started distributing weapons to local Serbs, Savic recounted. The witness contends that Kojic had told him that he got the rifles from Jovica Stanisic.

Savic claims that Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan, who commanded the Serb Volunteer Guard, and Slobodan Medic Boca, who commanded the Scorpions, told him in separate conversations that Jovica Stanisic was their boss. As the hearing today drew to a close, Savic described how he worked with Brana Crncevic, helping him to gather aid for refugees. On one occasion in June or July 1991 Crncevic asked the witness to tell Arkan to call ‘Sele’, that is Vojislav Seselj. Savic asked Crncevic to put that in writing; the written note was kept and was tendered into evidence today. Tomorrow Savic will be cross-examined by the defense counsel of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic.

The hearing today was again not attended by the first-accused Stanisic. According to a report by the UN Detention Unit physicians, Stanisic’s physical health remained unchanged as of this morning and he was fit for trial, although he is even more ‘depressed and agitated’ now that his family problems were discussed in the Court.

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