The Hague: A UN court slapped two former Serbian spy chiefs with longer prison sentences Wednesday in the last major Hague war crimes trial from the 1990s Bosnian conflict.
Judges rejected appeals by the late Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic’s state security service boss Jovica Stanisic and his deputy Franko Simatovic against their 2021 convictions, and increased their original jail terms from 12 to 15 years.
The court found that Stanisic, 72, and Simatovic, 73, had been part of a criminal plan to “ethnically cleanse” non-Serbs from large parts of Bosnia and Croatia — reversing their acquittal on that charge at the initial trial.
Prosecutors hailed the verdict as crucial because for the first time it formally linked atrocities in Bosnia to the regime of Serbia’s Milosevic, who died in custody in The Hague in 2006.
“It’s really important,” chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz told reporters outside court.
“It’s the only decision we have with the direct involvement of officials from Belgrade convicted as part of a joint criminal enterprise.”
Munira Subasic, president of one of the “Mothers of Srebrenica” associations that campaigns for justice for victims of the 1995 massacre, said the verdict could help ease the tensions that still plague the Balkans.
“Without truth, there is no justice. Without justice, there is no trust. And without trust, there is no reconciliation,” Subasic told reporters.
Only Stanisic was in court for the verdict, wearing a blue jacket and wide-collared white shirt, and occasionally wringing his hands. Simatovic watched by videolink from his cell.
The court upheld the pair’s convictions for the war crime of murder and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, forcible transfer and deportation.
It said they had aided and abetted a Serb death squad that terrorized the Bosnian town of Bosanski Samac in April 1992 with killings, rapes and looting.
But judges also found them guilty of being part of a broader conspiracy to commit wider crimes across the Balkans, and for being responsible for a murder in Croatia in June 1992.
“The appeals chamber dismisses Stanisic’s and Simatovic’s appeals in their entirety… and imposes a sentence of 15 years” on each, head appeals judge Graciela Gatti Santana said.
“Stanisic and Simatovic shared the intent to further the common criminal purpose to forcibly and permanently remove the majority of non-Serbs from large areas of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.” Stanisic has already served seven years and Simatovic just over eight years, the judge added.
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