Top Milosevic government officials convicted of aiding and abetting war crimes in Balkans

Two top wartime Serbian officials were convicted by the United Nations’s International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals on Wednesday of aiding and abetting war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia during the sectarian wars of the 1990s.

The convictions mark the first time that leading Serbian government officials were directly linked to the atrocities carried out by ethnic Serb paramilitary forces during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Previously, the Hague had only tried ethnic Serb commanders directly involved in the killings. Prosecutors had been unable to find sufficient evidence that would confirm the suspicions of numerous analysts, holding that the government of Serbian despot Slobodan Milosevic was the true architect behind the conflicts, according to Balkan Insight.

The defendants, Jovica Stanisic, 70, and Franko Simatovic, 71, were known as “Milosevic’s men on the ground.” Stanisic served as the chief of the interior ministry’s State Security Service, and Simatovic served as the commander of the service’s Special Operations Unit, also functioning as Stanisic’s right-hand man. In these roles, they played a key role in the sectarian conflicts in the region.

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“If you look at their roles during the course of the conflict, they had a very essential and critical part in causing, and then continuing, the ethnic cleansing campaign. I mean, through their arming, through their financial support, through their deployment of the special units, they really fuel the ethnic tensions that envelops the rest of Croatia and then Bosnia and Herzegovina,” said Adam Weber, a former prosecutor in the case.

The prosecution claimed that the pair were responsible for organizing, supplying, financing, and supporting a “joint criminal enterprise” of Serbian nationalist militias that aimed to ethnically cleanse areas of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina of non-Serbs, according to the New York Times. They aimed to prove that the pair funded, armed, and directed the most well-armed and well-known Serb paramilitary groups, including the Knindze, the Scorpions, Arkan’s Tigers, and the Red Berets.

The pair were indicted in 2003 and acquitted in 2013, but the two had the acquittal overturned in 2015, at which point a retrial was ordered. The pair pleaded not guilty.

The arguments of the trial were similar to that of Momcilo Perisic, who was the chief of the general staff of the Armed Forces of Yugoslavia, whose 27-year sentence was overturned on appeal in 2013. The judges’ contention with the prosecution in Perisic’s case was that although it was evident that Serbia gave its allies in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina extensive financial and military aid, there was no evidence that this aid was intended for criminal purposes, rather than intended for legitimate military purposes.

Prosecutors were able to find the definitive link in the case of Stanisic and Simatovic after being given access to Serbian secret police archives, which showed payrolls for paramilitary groups signed personally by Simatovic. The evidence was sufficient enough for judges to convict the pair of having a leading role in war crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

However, judges only found sufficient evidence to convict the pair of crimes in the town of Bosanski Samac in Bosnia and Herzegovina, meaning that the pair are only legally culpable for crimes committed in a single town in Bosnia and nowhere else, according to the BBC.

“The Trial Chamber is satisfied that the Accused provided practical assistance, which had a substantial effect on the commission of the crimes of murder, forcible displacement, and persecution committed in Bosanski Samac, and were aware that their acts assisted in their commission. Accordingly, the Trial Chamber finds them criminally responsible for aiding and abetting the commission of the crimes in Bosanski Samac. The Trial Chamber does not find the Accused responsible for planning, ordering, or aiding and abetting any other charged crime,” the judgment read.

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The pair were sentenced to 12 years in prison. The end of the trial marks the conclusion of the Hague’s criminal investigation into war crimes committed during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.

Wayne Jordash, Stanisic’s lawyer, denounced the judgment as “manifestly excessive” and vowed to appeal the conviction, according to the New York Times.

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Tags: War, War Crimes, Balkans, Croatia, Bosnia, United Nations, Crime, Law, Foreign Policy, Europe

Original Author: Brady Knox

Original Location: Top Milosevic government officials convicted of aiding and abetting war crimes in Balkans

source: yahoo.com