Reynaud Theunens, witness at the Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic trial

In his expert report on the military role of the two former chiefs of the Serbian state security service, Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic, prosecution military expert Reynaud Theunens listed several persons – including Vasilije Vasa Mijovic, Zivojin Ivanovic Crnogorac and Radojica Rajo Bozovic – as members of the units controlled by the Serbian secret service. They have all been mentioned during the trial so far as members of the special unit of the Serbian secret service known as the Red Berets. On the last, seventh day of Theunens’s evidence, Franko Simatovic’s defense counsel tried to deny there were any ties between Mijovic, Ivanovic and Bozovic and the Serbian police.

The defense lawyer showed a series of documents from the early 1990s in which Mijovic, Ivanovic and Bozovic were mentioned as members of the Serb police in Bosnia and Krajina. For instance, one of the documents states that Zivadin Ivanovic was the commander of the Special Purpose Unit of the Republika Srpska MUP. In another document, the RS interior minister Mico Stanisic issued an order to commander of a special unit from Doboj, Radojica Bozovic. The third document was signed by Vasilije Mijovic as the commander of the RSK MUP Special Purpose Unit.

Theunens didn’t contest the contents of the documents, but said that based on the documents he had inspected as he wrote the expert report, he was able to conclude that those men ‘switched from one post in the police to another’ in different countries. This is why it ‘was interesting to follow their careers’, Theunens noted.

The defense also denied there were any ties between the Serbian State Security and the commander of a special unit from Knin, Dragan Vasiljkovic, also known as Daniel Snedden. Defense counsel Bakrac didn’t contest Theunens’s conclusion that the Serbian secret service monitored Vasiljkovic but tried to prove that it didn’t employ him. Bakrac showed a document of the Serbian Defense Ministry, dated 8 November 1991, in which Minister Tomislav Simovic recommends that Captain Dragan’s services be used in the ‘preparation of the volunteers’. The witness replied it was just a recommendation, and was adamant that the State Security employed Vasiljkovic.

In the re-examination, the prosecutor brought up documents that show Mijovic, Ivanovic and Bozovic were employed by the Serbian police, and then the evidence of the Belgian military expert ended after seven days. Theunens has already testified in five other cases before the Tribunal.

The trial of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic for crimes committed by the police and paramilitaries in the wars in Croatia and BH will continue in the afternoon. A protected witness who will testify under the pseudonym JF-052 will begin his evidence.

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