In his statement to the OTP, the witness said the Serbian state security service ‘controlled all the paramilitary units in Eastern Slavonia in 1991’. Jovica Stanisic’s defense counsel today put it to him that this was ‘an exaggeration’. The witness disagreed, saying that the Serbian secret service in that part of Croatia controlled ‘Arkan’s men’, the Knindza unit and the Territorial Defense


Like his colleague representing Franko Simatovic, the defense lawyer for Jovica Stanisic started his cross-examination of former reserve member of the Serbian MUP Miladin Kovacevic by asking him about his meetings with the former chief of the Serbian state security service. As former heads of the Serbian state security service (DB), Stanisic and Simatovic are charged with the crimes of the Serbian police and paramilitary units during the wars in Croatia and BH. Kovacevic’s testimony should show that Stanisic and Simatovic exercised command over those units.

As the witness explained today, he saw the accused Stanisic for the first time in 1991 in the DB building in Belgrade, and then again in 1994, when ammunition and other items were loaded up in the Belgrade port, to be transported into Republika Srpska and RSK, amid an arms embargo purportedly imposed by Serbia on the Bosnian Serbs. The witness saw the accused for the third time some time later during the ‘hostage crisis’ when the witness was in the security detail for the convoy with the recently liberated UN staff, who had been taken to Serbia by bus. Kovacevic saw the Serbian DB chief for the last time in May 1997 at a celebration of the Red Berets unit in Kula. When the defense lawyer reminded the witness of what he had said in his examination-in chief last year: that he saw Stanisic in Erdut in 1992, Kovacevic explained that he had heard that Stanisic was in the Arkan’s Tigers’ training center but hadn’t personally seen him.

Defense counsel Jordash then dealt with the witness’s claim in the statement to the OTP that the Serbian state security service ‘formed and controlled all paramilitary units in Eastern Slavonia in 1991’. Kovacevic disagreed with the defense lawyer’s claim that this was an ‘exaggeration’. According to the witness, Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan’s Serbian Volunteer Guard, Captain Dragan’s Knindza unit and the local Territorial Defense lead by Radovan Stojicic Badza operated in that part of Croatia under the command of the Serbian secret service.

Asked where he learned this, the witness said that he heard from his superiors in the MUP that ‘Arkan’s men’ were a unit of the state security service; he himself could see that the unit was not a part of the regular chain of command because they had better equipment than other units which got their equipment from the JNA. Kovacevic said that members of the Knindza unit – who arrived in Eastern Slavonia from Knin in October or November 1991 – were a unit of the Serbian secret service. Recently he has heard former commander of the Knindza unit, Captain Dragan, say on TV that Franko Simatovic had sent him to Knin in 1991. As for the commander of the Territorial Defense, Radovan Stojicic, there were ‘stories and rumors’ that Stojicic was subordinated to the of the Serbian security service, the witness said.

The defense counsel finally noted that in his interview with the OTP investigators in 2003, the witness never mentioned that the Serbian state security service exercised command over those units. It was a ‘general statement’ where he was not asked about details because it was not clear yet in which case he would give evidence, Kovacevic said.

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