Jovica Stanisic i Franko Simatovic

At the trial of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic, the prosecution has filed a motion seeking to tender into evidence 16 additional excerpts from the diaries confiscated in early 2010 in the family house of the former commander of the VRS Main Staff Ratko Mladic. In the past few months, the prosecution has submitted two separate motions seeking to tender into evidence 21 passages from Mladic’s notebooks and eight audio tapes, seized together with the diaries.

The prosecution argued that the passages were indeed relevant because some corroborated the existence of a joint criminal enterprise aimed at expelling non-Serbs from parts of Croatia and BH. Stanisic and Simatovic are charged with taking part in the joint criminal enterprise. For instance, at a meeting of the Bosnian Serb political and military leadership on 6 May 1992, Radovan Karadzic says that the Serbs are ‘on the verge of creating their own state without too many internal enemies’, i.e., non-Serbs.

Some evidence refers to the role of the Serbian state security service – headed by the accused – played in the distribution of arms to the military and police units outside of Serbia. Mladic says in several places in his diary that the personnel from the Serbian state security service took part in the effort to ship arms to the Serbs in Krajina and Bosnia. In the entry on 16 December 1991, Mladic writes that a man called Rade Siptar told him that Dule Orlovic Fica and Frenki, from the Serbian state security service, planned to distribute 3,000 guns to the Muslims in Bihac, because they were counting on the Muslims to join the Serb forces later.

Some of the excerpts listed in the prosecution motion refer to the charges against Stanisic and Simatovic, such as crimes against Croats in Krajina. Mladic’s notes show that the JNA units under his command participated in the attack on Skabrnja on 18 November 1991. The indictment alleges that at least 38 civilians were killed then. One of Mladic’s subordinate officers informed him that ‘46 soldiers of the Croatian National Guard and civilians’ were killed in the JNA attack on Skabrnja.

From the notes taken during the meeting with the Croatian side in February 1992 it is clear that Mladic was asked to allow the humanitarian organizations to visit Skabrnja, Bruska and Nadin, because civilians’ bodies were suspected of being there. Also, in late December 1991, Mladic wrote down that a man by the name of Kero had asked permission to hand over to ‘them’ – the Croatian side – the bodies of 11 Croats from the hamlet of Marinovici near Bruska. Kero also asked for permission to ‘evacuate’ about 2,000 Croats from that village and nearby places. The prosecutor alleges that the ‘evacuation’ in fact meant ‘deportation and forcible transfer of civilians’. The crimes committed in these villages in Krajina are listed in the indictment against the former chiefs of the Serbian state security service.

The prosecutor contends that some of the excerpts tendered into evidence confirm the authenticity of the audio tapes of Mladic’s telephone conversations, tendered into evidence as prosecution exhibits earlier.

The trial of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic Frenki continues next Tuesday with the evidence of another prosecution witness.

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