The UN High Court will rule on the re-trial of Assistant Milosevic in the new Courts

Prosecutors have asked a UN war crimes tribunal to impose life sentences on former Serbian espionage leaders Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic.

Two former Serbian spy leaders and aides, Slobodan Milosevic, have had to face the verdicts of a UN tribunal after being re-tried for many years on charges of leading death squads in the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

Jovica Stanisic, 70, former head of the Serbian state security service, and his replacement, Franko Simatovic, 71, are accused of supporting paramilitary groups in Bosnia and Croatia.

Among them were an elite unit called the “Red Caps” and a paramilitary earring run by Zeljko “Arkan” Raznatovic, named “Arkan’s Tigers,” which allegedly killed hundreds of people.

Wednesday’s ruling in The Hague, which can be appealed, is the latest UN prosecution for crimes committed in the bloody break-up of Yugoslavia.

After the fall of communism in 1992 the separate but related conflicts that resulted in the disintegration of the country resulted in the death of about 130,000 people and the displacement of millions.

Stanisic and Simatovic, who were paid on bail, will be in court after being handed over to the UN detention center in The Hague last week, a court spokesman told the AFP news agency.

Both have pleaded not guilty to the persecution of crimes against humanity, murder, deportation and forced transfer and war crime of murder.

Prosecutors are seeking a life sentence.

The judges will announce the decision at 13:00 GMT. The verdict will be issued directly with a 30-minute delay.

Trial again

In 2013, Stanisic and Simatovic were acquitted of crimes against humanity and war crimes in a shock verdict in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague (IKTY).

In 2015, however, in a rare exit following protests and prosecutors ’appeals, the judges ordered a retrial on suspicion of legal errors in the initial trial.

The trial took place again at the UN International Criminal Court Residency Mechanism. It started in 2017, the last arguments were in April 2021.

Earlier this month, the appellate judge was in the same court confirm Former Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic has been convicted of his role in the atrocities committed in the Bosnian war, and has been sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide.

Paramilitary groups

According to UN prosecutors, the couple were part of a joint criminal enterprise serving the life sentence of Bosnian Serb President Radose Karadzic, who died in The Hague in 2006, and Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.

Stanisic and Simatovic “organized, supplied, financed, supported, and directed” Serbian paramilitary groups to force Croats, Muslims, and non-Serbs to kill outside the vast areas in an attempt to establish a Serb-led state. .

At least 280 people have been charged in the indictment by red caps and tigers in two dozen specific attacks on cities and towns.

The Arkan tiger chief was indicted by a court in The Hague, but was shot dead in Belgrade in 2000.

Stanisic and Simatovic were taken to IKTY in 2003 after being arrested by Serbian police in connection with the assassination of Serbian Reform Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.

As a prominent figure in the war, Stanisic was first seen in public in early 1995 as a special envoy of Milosevic who negotiated with the Bosnian Serb leadership to release hundreds of UN soldiers.

Stanisic was removed from office in October 1998 before the escalation of the 1999 Kosovo war because Milosevic disagreed with Milosevic’s repressive policy against the ethnic Albanian majority in the province.