Mile Bosnic, defence witness of Jovica Stanisic

In the cross-examination of former Krajina official Mile Bosnic, prosecutor Marcus contested his claim that the Serbian State Security Service didn’t have any influence over the events in Krajina in early 1990s. Bosnic is testifying as a defense witness of the former Serbian State Security Service chief Jovica Stanisic. Stanisic and his former assistant Franko Simatovic are charged with establishing and controlling police and paramilitary units that committed crimes against non-Serbs in Croatia and BH from 1991 to 1995. Through Bosnic, Stanisic’s defense is trying to contest the evidence of former president of the Republic of Serbian Krajiina Milan Babic. Babic testified about the role of the Serbian State Security Service and its chief in the war in Croatia.

The prosecutor tried to prove that Bosnic was not as well-informed as he claimed in the examination-in chief. According to the prosecutor, there was no reason for Bosnic, an ‘ordinary member’ of the SDS Main Board in Croatia and an ‘ordinary deputy’ in the Krajina Serb Assembly, to be informed about the involvement of the Serbian secret service in Krajina. The fact that Milan Babic, who was Bosnic’s close friend, didn’t tell him anything about the contacts with Jovica Stanisic didn’t mean that such contacts did not exist, the prosecutor contended. The prosecutor showed the witness the prosecution evidence that Babic and Stanisic met from August 1990 to August 1991 at least five times at different locations, including Knin and Belgrade. The prosecutor asked the witness if he allowed the possibility that there had been such meetings. ‘I agree, but it would be surprising, even unbelievable’, the witness replied.

The prosecutor then noted that former members of the Serbian State Security Service Dusan Momcilovic and Sasa Medakovic had been active in Krajina, but the issue was discussed in closed session. The prosecutor then confronted the witness with the claim that high-ranking officials of the Krajina State Security Service and police, Dusan Orlovic, and Milos and Toso Pajic also worked for the Serbian secret service, regularly reporting to its boss Stanisic. The witness replied like many times before, that he didn’t know anything about it.

Finally, the prosecution put it to the witness that his relationship with the former president of the Krajina Serbs Milan Babic had not been very close. Bosnic maintained that he had been one of Babic’s five closest associates, yet Babic never told him about the ties with the Serbian State Security Service and its bosses. The prosecutor said that in some 600 pages of transcripts of Babic’s evidence at the trials of Slobodan Milosevic, Momcilo Krajisnik and Milan Martic admitted into evidence at the Stanisic and Simatovic trial, Bosnic’s name is mentioned only two times. Both times, Milosevic brought the name up.

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