In the cross-examination of the protected witness FJ-007, the defense of the former Serbian State Security Service chief blamed the JNA for the murder and other crimes in Zvornik. On 9 April 1992, the witness suffered ‘a great and irreparable loss’; she blames Arkan’s men


The trial of former Serbian secret police chief Jovica Stanisic and his assistant Franko Simatovic continued today with the evidence of a witness testifying as JF-007. The statement the witness gave to the OTP investigators was admitted into evidence. The witness described in the statement what happened to her and her family in April 1992.

The prosecution didn’t read the usual summary from the statement admitted into evidence and the public was left in the dark as to what had actually happened to her. Franko Simatovic’s defense counsel extended his condolence to the witness for her ‘great and irreparable loss’. Judge Orie in his last address thanked the witness for coming to The Hague to testify about the events that ‘left terrible consequences’. At the very end of her evidence, the witness denied that she had given a statement to authorities of her country and said her ‘children were killed’.

The only thing that the prosecution quoted from the witness’s statement was that a group of soldiers entered a shelter where the civilians were hiding on 9 April 1992; all men were taken out. The soldiers wore camouflage uniforms; their faces were covered with black balaclavas. From their accent the witness concluded that they were from Serbia. The prosecutor didn’t ask the witness what happened to the men that were taken out. However, it could be inferred from the cross-examination that they were all killed.

Amir Zec, appearing today in the courtroom for the first time as the prosecutor, showed the witness three video clips taken in 1991 and 1992. The first clip was part of a story made by a British TV crew about the Serbian Volunteer Guard (SDG) led by Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan. The witness confirmed that the soldiers who entered their shelter and took the men out were wearing the same masks as Arkan’s men in the clip. Every child can confirm that the soldiers in Zvornik wore ‘exactly the same masks’, the witness noted.

As alleged in the indictment, the SDG was not a group spontaneously organized by volunteers as it was painted in the public during the war: it was a unit formed, equipped and controlled by the two accused, Stanisic and Simatovic, now on trial for a series of crimes committed in the war in Bosnia and Croatia by the SDG and similar paramilitary units linked with the Serbian secret police.

Two other video recordings made by a BBC journalist were shown to the witness. The videos show JNA troops firing on Zvornik from the Serbian side of the Drina river, the tanks crossing the bridge and entering the town and columns of refugees, women and children, leaving the town under the artillery fire. The witness confirmed that the refugees were recorded in the village of Snagovo near Zvornik.

In the cross-examination, the defense tried to prove that the JNA played the main role in the takeover in Zvornik and the crimes that followed. Stanisic and Simatovic did not have formal links with the JNA. Stanisic again followed the hearing via video link from the UN Detention Unit in Scheveningen.

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