Milan Milosevic, defence witness of Franko Simatovic

Prosecutor Maxine Marcus today continued her cross-examination of police expert Milan Milosevic. She put it to him that parts of his expert report about Franko Simatovic’s career in the Serbian State Security Service were ‘limited’ because they were based on ‘limited documents’. In other words, she claims that only the documents from Simatovic’s personnel file were used, rather than the documents he signed, which clearly show that Simatovic commanded the Red Beret unit.

Milan Milosevic, who teaches at the Police Academy, is testifying as Simatovic’s defense witness. In his expert report, Milosevic said that the accused was a senior inspector in the Second Administration of the Serbian State Security Service. This was a ‘low-ranking position’, he claimed. The defense wants to contest the allegations in the indictment that Franko Simatovic, as the commander of the Red Berets, was responsible for the crimes committed by the police and paramilitary units in Croatia and BH. He faces the same charges as the Serbian secret service chief, Jovica Stanisic. Answering the prosecutor’s questions, the witness said that even if he were to see documents with Simatovic’s signature, this would not make him change his opinion about Simatovic’s role in the Serbian State Security Service.As Milosevic explained, he wrote that part of his expert report on the basis of the personnel file of the accused.

There was another debate in the same mould today about the part of the report about the Serbian State Security Service special unit, the Red Berets. This unit had several official names. As the witness claims, the documents indicate the unit was established in 1993 as the Anti-Terrorist Unit. The prosecutor argued that in fact the unit existed already in the early 1990s, and was known the Special Operations Unit. Documents show that the families of the Special Operations Unit personnel killed in action received compensation from the legal successor of the formation – the Anti-Terrorist Unit, the prosecutor insisted. In the months after August 1993, the documents produced by the unit bore the Special Operations Unit seal although the unit had already been renamed, the prosecutor said. This raised the issue of the authenticity of those documents, Milosevic replied. He ruled out the possibility that it was one and the same formation operating under different names. The Red Berets unit was commonly referred to in the public as the Special Operations Unit.

As the prosecutor noted, there were payrolls showing that members of Arkan’s Serbian Volunteer Guard received payments from the Anti-Terrorist Unit budget. According to some prosecution witnesses, that unit committed crimes in Eastern Slavonia and BH. Per diem allowances were also paid out to Milorad Ulemek Legija, a notorious member of the unit who went on to become the commander of the Special Operations Unit. The witness replied he didn’t know who was in Arkan’s unit and when. As he went through the documents, he ‘paid no attention to this aspect’. The witness also claimed the Red Berets unit never had an officially appointed commander. The prosecutor put it to him that Franko Simatovic headed the unit because his initials and signature appeared in dozens of documents produced by the special unit. The witness dismissed this suggestion.

Milan Milosevic will complete his evidence tomorrow.

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