The Red Berets were not a paramilitary formation; on the contrary, it was a unit that secured the communications center and the Serbian state security service operatives, the defense lawyers of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic contended in an attempt to present the witness as a criminal


Protected witness JF-48, former member of the Red Berets, explained today in his cross-examination why he believed that the unit had been a ‘paramilitary wing of the State Security Department’ and not just a regular police unit or a security detail.

Yesterday the witness spoke about the atmosphere of fear and unconditional obedience in the Special Operations Unit, known as the Red Berets, of the Serbian state security service. The indictment charges Stanisic and Simatovic, former chiefs of the Serbian state security, with crimes perpetrated by the Red Berets and similar units in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Stanisic’s counsel Wayne Jordash argued that the Red Berets’ main task was to secure the State Security Department’s communications center, referred to in the courtroom as Location 2. The other task of the unit was to secure plainclothes secret agents from time to time. The witness was adamant that both the unit and Location 2 had a much broader use. He also maintained that the training system was completely different from that in the regular police or military.

‘In the course of regular training, a soldier didn’t have to go to toilet with a rifle and to sleep with it; it was also impossible for a trainer to fire live ammunition past his head during training’, the witness said. According to the witness, on one occasion a trainer threw a hand grenade close to a group of soldiers, after telling them to sit down and get some rest. He also said that the trainers in the unit were not trained police officers. For a while, people received salaries without proper documents. According to JF-48, this indicates that it was a paramilitary unit, at first informally called the Red Berets or ‘Frenki’s men’. Only later, at a ceremony marking the opening of a training center did the unit get its official name, the Anti-Terrorist Operations Unit (JATD).

Jordash then tried to discredit the witness by quoting parts from his personal file, where JF-48 was described as a person prone to criminal activities and violations of rules of service. The witness admitted that he had been punished for disciplinary offenses but strongly denied any links with crime.

Presiding judge Orie admonished Jordash on behalf of the Trial Chamber for trying to use a document from the case file on the internal disciplinary proceedings file against the witness as evidence that JF-48 took part in looting. ‘Sleeping in someone else’s bed can hardly be understood as a looting’, Orie said, adding that the Trial Chamber ‘considers very seriously every presented document’. Jordash claimed there were inconsistencies in the translation and the judge noted that the document showed the disciplinary proceedings against the witness were later suspended.

Simatovic’s lawyer Vladimir Petrovic also contested the claim that the Red Berets were a paramilitary group. Petrovic argued that the unit was established in line with the regulations in force at the time. The witness was wrong when he assumed that the unit was subordinated to Simatovic, the defense counsel noted. The witness personally never heard Simatovic issue orders to the Red Berets trainer, but he remembered that on one occasion Simatovic was ‘welcomed as the boss’.

The trial continues tomorrow with the evidence of a prosecution expert.

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