Prosecutors Request Mladic Notebooks
Submission in Stanicic and Simatovic case says diaries of former Bosnian Serb commander contain evidence of joint criminal enterprise.
Prosecutors Request Mladic Notebooks
Submission in Stanicic and Simatovic case says diaries of former Bosnian Serb commander contain evidence of joint criminal enterprise.
Prosecutors filed a motion this week seeking to tender into evidence parts of Hague indictee Ratko Mladic’s diaries in the trial of former high-ranking Serbian officials Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic.
The defence team for Stanisic asked for a postponement of the trial for at least one month so as to study in detail the parts of Mladic’s notebooks which the prosecution asked to have included into evidence.
Stanisic and Simatovic, former State Security Service, DB, officers, have been charged with participating in a joint criminal enterprise, with the objective of forcibly and permanently removing non-Serbs from large areas of Croatia and Bosnia through persecution, murder and deportation of the Croat, Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat populations.
The 21 proposed extracts from Mladic’s notebooks, according to the prosecution, “point out the existence of a joint criminal enterprise with the aim of establishing ethnically clean areas in parts of Croatia and [Bosnia], and the participation of the accused Stanisic and Simatovic in them”.
The journal extracts belong to material seized by Serbian authorities last February from family members of Mladic, the commander of the main staff of the Bosnian Serb army from 1992 to 1996, who is wanted for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The prosecution contended that there were several reasons why the diaries were relevant, alleging that they show there was communication and cooperation between the participants of the joint criminal enterprise.
Apart from proving the existence of the joint criminal enterprise and its purpose, the diaries show that Stanisic was much more than just a mediator between Belgrade and the Serbs in Bosnia and Krajina, the prosecution argues.
The motion notes that the authenticity of Mladic’s diaries is unquestioned as they were confiscated in an apartment belonging to Mladic’s wife. Mladic’s long-term associate Manojlo Milovanovic testified in the trial and identified the handwriting of the former commander.
In this week’s hearing, the lawyer for Stanisic, Wayne Jordash, said that the defence sought to postpone the trial for at least a month in order to familiarise itself with the notebook extracts.
“The defence considers this to be a very reasonable request, because it is simply not possible to study in a due way 4,000 pages and 120 tapes and deal with this complicated trial at the same time,” he said. “Nobody in my team had the opportunity to hear any of the tapes, and nobody in the team has had the time to study Mladic's notebooks.”
Presiding Judge Alphons Orie said that the chamber asked for the submissions of the defence in writing.
“We definitely have to hear about this more, and certainly we need to hear answers from the prosecutor,” Judge Orie said. “We need to know whether the parties to this trial think that the time sought by the defence is available with regard to witnesses to be brought to this trial.”
He added that the prosecutor would not be given much time to respond to the request by the defence.
“[The prosecution] should have been expecting such a request, because similar things have happened before, in other cases,” he added.
Prosecutors in the cases of Serbian nationalist politician Vojislav Seselj, and former Bosnian Serb interior ministry officials Mico Stanisic and Stojan Zupljanin, are also seeking to enter the notebooks as exhibits in those trials.
The Jovica Stanisic and Simatovic trial will continue after the winter break.
Velma Saric is an IWPR-trained journalist in Sarajevo.
