Describing the influence the accused Serbian secret service chiefs Stanisic and Simatovic wielded in the RSK and Cazin Krajina in 1993 and 1994, former military intelligence officer Slobodan Lazarevic spoke about the Spider Joint Command, comprising ‘Arkan’s men’ and other special units from Serbia, members of Serb army in Krajina and Abdic’s troops from BH. High-ranking police officer in RSK called Stanisic ‘dad’


Units controlled by the Serbian State Security Service were active in Krajina throughout the Serb rule there, from 1991 until its downfall in August 1995, contends former intelligence officer from Belgrade Slobodan Lazarevic. In his third testimony before the Tribunal, Lazarevic told the court what he knew about the role of the two Serbian State Security Service chiefs, Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic, on trial for the crimes the special police and paramilitary units committed in Croatia and BH.

The former military intelligence officer appeared in The Hague as a prosecution witness in October 2002 at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic; he testified that all military, police and political structures of the RSK were controlled by Belgrade. Nine years later, in June 2009 to general surprise, Ante Gotovina’s defense called Lazarevic at the trial for crimes against Serbs in Krajina during and after Operation Storm. Today Lazarevic again testified for the prosecution. His examination-in-chief was based on the transcripts of his testimony in the Milosevic case. The transcript was admitted into evidence at the start of the hearing.

As a member of the Counterintelligence Service in the former JNA, the witness was sent to Krajina in late 1991. There, in the 21st Corps stationed in Kordun, the witness was appointed liaison officer: he was to liaise with the international representatives. At the beginning, the witness said, Jovica Stanisic came to the RSK often. Once ‘organizational issues’ were solved, Stanisic sent his deputies, his right-hand men: Franko Simatovic and Radojica Raja Bozovic.

Lazarevic’s claims about the influence Jovica Stanisic and the Serbian State Security Service wielded in Krajina are based among other things, on the information he obtained through his friend Toso Pajic. Pajic was one of the most influential police officers in the Krajina MUP. Lazarevic contends that Pajic was in regular telephone contact with Stanisic, whom he called casually ‘dad’. Another channel used by the Serbian secret service to influence the situation in Krajina was an anti-terrorist unit comprising ‘young men with police record’, which operated as part of Lazarevic’s 21st Corps. Members of that unit claimed they were paid by the Serbian police. Their task was to scare people and cause unrest in order to create a crisis every time the prices on the black market dropped or when peace talks loomed on the horizon.

According to Lazarevic, the involvement of the Serbian secret service in that area reached its peak when the Spider Joint Command was established in 1993. About 400 soldiers from the 21st Corps, 200 Serbian MUP personnel, a hundred ‘Arkan’s men’ and some troops from Fikret Abdic’s army joined the Spider Joint Command. ‘This was in fact an international unit, with men from BH, Serbia and Krajina’, Lazarevic commented jocularly. In Lazarevic’s words, members of the unit had state-of-the-art weapons and uniforms; they looked like NATO soldiers.

The ostensible goal of the drive to send the police and paramilitary forces from Serbia was to help the Muslim ‘brethren’ in their fight against their fellow Muslims from the BH Army 5th Corps. Lazarevic says the hidden motive, as evidenced by the presence of ‘Arkan’s men’, had to be money. Stanisic’s right-hand men Simatovic and Bozovic were in command of the Spider Joint Command during the fight for Velika Kladusa in 1994, recounted Lazarevic.

As the hearing today drew to a close, Stanisic’s defense counsel Jordash began cross-examining the witness.

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