The defense of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic cross-examined prosecution expert Robert Donia today, trying to shift the blame for what happened in BH on Radovan Karadzic and the Bosnian Serb leadership. As they argued, Serbia did not provide any support to the effort to carve up Bosnia


At the beginning of Robert Donia’s cross-examination, the defense of the former Serbian secret service chief Jovica Stanisic tried to shift the blame for the arming of the Serbs in Croatia and BH on the eve of war from the Serbian MUP to the JNA. Stanisic and his deputy Franko Simatovic are on trial for their part in the joint criminal enterprise to expel non-Serbs from large swathes of Croatia and BH. In his expert report made on the basis of the minutes from the Bosnian Serb assembly sessions, Donia argues that Bosnia was carved up with the aid of the Serbian leadership.

Stanisic’s defense counsel Jordash brought up parts of Donia’s expert report he drafted for the trial of the former RS Assembly speaker Momcilo Krajisnik, where he says that the Serbs in Croatia got their weapons from the JNA, which also helped them in the initial attacks on the Croatian villages in Krajina. The witness stood by his claims. The presiding judge cut short the defense lawyer’s further probing of the issue when he touched upon the situation in Bosnia. The judge invited Jordash to tender the relevant portions of Donia’s report into evidence, since they were not challenged by the witness or the prosecution.

Simatovic’s defense counsel Vladimir Petrovic showed Donia parts from a speech Radovan Karadzic made in April 1995, in which he says that the ‘dispersion of weapons’ among the Serbs in BH had been done thanks to the JNA. He then asked the witness whether in the 6,000-odd pages of the Assembly minutes he came across any claims that the Serbian MUP and the State Security Service took part in the distribution of weapons. The US expert could not recall any such references.

The defense asked Donia if the Red Berets, a unit run by the Serbian state security service, was mentioned at all in the RS Assembly minutes, apart from the murder of a Serb policeman in Brcko that Donia discussed yesterday. Donia thought it was, a few times, but he could not recall the context.

Defense counsel Petrovic then brought up several statements Radovan Karadzic made before the RS Assembly, which show, according to him, that Serbia did not give its support to the goals of the Bosnian Serb leadership. In a speech Karadzic said, ‘In 1991, we told the then Yugoslav presidency that we had a chance to reach our borders and create our states; we will be vilified and pilloried, but in the end, we will be recognized. There was not enough manhood and statesmanship to do it at the time’. Asked who Karadzic was referring to, Donia said it was the rump presidency of the SFRY, controlled by Milosevic.

After the US expert completed his evidence, former Serb policeman Milomir Kovacevic took the stand. He was examined in chief late last August. In his testimony he said that he would see Arkan's men and Scorpions in Eastern Slavonia in 1991 and in Bosnian Krajina in 1995. He learned from various sources that they were operating under the command of the Serbian state security service. He was not cross-examined at the time for procedural reasons and had to return to The Hague to be examined by the defense. His evidence will continue next Wednesday.

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