Members of the Red Berets were sworn to total obedience and fanatical devotion to the unit, protected witness testifying under the pseudonym JF-048 confirmed at the trial of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic. The witness pointed out that the unit had ties with Arkan’s Tigers and Scorpions


Protected witness JF-048, former member of the Red Berets, described at the trial of the former chief of the Serbian secret police Jovica Stanisic and his assistant Franko Simatovic the training system in the camps where he was in 1995 and 1996. The witness is testifying under protective measures. Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan’s unit, the Tigers, and the Scorpions under the command of Slobodan Medic Boca got their equipment from the same depots, the witness said. The camp locations were not made public to protect the witness’s identity.

The Red Berets, officially known as the Anti-terrorist Operations Unit (JATD) and later the Special Operations Unit (JSO), the indictment alleges, were under direct control of the Serbian State Security Department. Stanisic and Simatovic are charged with crimes perpetrated by those and similar police and paramilitary formations in Bosnia and Croatia.

The witness described the atmosphere of secrecy among the Red Berets. Members were continuously reminded not to say what they did and for whom they worked even to their closest relatives. ‘It is hard to get into this unit, and even more difficult to get out of it’, members were told as they began their training. Stanisic and Simatovic attended the ceremony to mark the opening of one of those camps, the witness said. Simatovic repeatedly visited training camps, traveling by a helicopter. The witness claims that on one such visit Simatovic told them that they ‘have the duty to do everything they are ordered to’.

The witness said he was upset when one of the commanders told them that he had the right to kill everyone that failed to obey an order. The informal oath said by the unit members before the meal instructed the soldiers to take their own lives they were about to be captured alive.

A part of a video recording of the oath of allegiance was shown in the courtroom. The lined up soldiers recited
‘One day, when you are wounded
And left on the battlefield
When the enemy women, children and dogs come
To tear you to pieces
Shoot yourself in the head
And die like a hero’.
The video recording showed members of the Tigers and Red Berets uttering the same words.

In his statement given to the OTP investigators in 2000, admitted into evidence today together with the transcript of his testimony at the Slobodan Milosevic trial, the witness said that in a training camp he found some 30 former convicts whose sentences in Serbia had been commuted to allow them to fight on the front. The witness claimed that they were in the reserve of the Anti-terrorist Operations Unit.

On at least two occasions, the Tigers and Scorpions come to the Red Berets base to get ammunition, the witness said, but could not say why they were allowed to do it.

Stanisic’s counsel Wayne Jordash began his cross-examination of the witness. and wanted to know if the witness or any other member of the unit had committed any crimes during their time in the training camps. The witness replied that nobody did. Jordash continues his cross-examination tomorrow.

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