Granting in part the motion filed by Franko Simatovic’s new defense team to adjourn the trial, the Trial Chamber scheduled a new hearing in the case of the former Serbian State Security chiefs for the last week in November. The trial will proceed for two days a week until the Tribunal’s winter recess


The trial of former chief of the Serbian State Security Service Jovica Stanisic and former commander of the Special Operations Unit Franko Simatovic will continue in the week starting 30 November 2009. The Trial Chamber thus partially granted the motion filed by Simatovic’s defense to adjourn the trial for eight months in order for them to be able to familiarize themselves with the case. Mihajlo Bakrac and Vladimir Petrovic have been appointed Simatovic’s defense counsel following the death of his erstwhile lawyer Zoran Jovanovic.

According the Trial Chamber’s decision, the trial will proceed two days a week until the winter recess, scheduled to begin on 21 December 2009; this means that there will be only six trial days in November and December. Since the trial was adjourned in September 2009, Simatovic’s lawyers will have had four full months to familiarize themselves with the case and to prepare for the trial.

Franko Simatovic will be provisionally released pending the resumption of the trial. In the decision granting provisional release, the judges note that Simatovic voluntarily surrendered to the Tribunal, has always respected the conditions of the provisional release and never posed any threat to either victims or witnesses. The Trial Chamber also took into consideration Simatovic’s willingness to cooperate with the prosecution and the guarantees given by the Serbian government. The first-accused Jovica Stanisic also filed a motion for provisional release. Since the trial started, Jovica Stanisic has refused to attend hearings because of his ‘poor physical and mental health’.

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