Simatovic Asks for Dismissal of Charges
Defence declares that there is no evidence to support the charges against him.
Simatovic Asks for Dismissal of Charges
Defence declares that there is no evidence to support the charges against him.
Lawyers for former Serbian intelligence official Franko Simatovic this week asked Hague tribunal judges to dismiss all five counts against him.
The hearing, known as a 98 bis procedure, is offered to all defendants at the conclusion of the prosecution’s case, before the defence begins calling its own witnesses. After hearing lengthy statements from both parties, the judges can enter a verdict of not guilty on one or more counts if they find that there is no evidence to support the charges.
Simatovic, who performed various intelligence roles in Serbia’s State Security Service, DB, is indicted alongside former DB chief Jovica Stanisic on five counts of murder, persecution, forced deportation and other inhuman acts that were committed during the 1991-95 war in the former Yugoslavia.
According to the indictment, the two men provided logistical, financial and material support for Serb paramilitary units – including Arkan’s Tigers, the Red Berets, and the Scorpions – which carried out crimes against non-Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia.
While Simatovic elected to present a 98 bis argument this week, Stanisic decided against it.
His lawyer, Wayne Jordash, said this was because defendants can only challenge entire counts in the indictment according to the 98 bis rule – and not “individual charges or discreet liabilities”.
“We have taken the position that a challenge to a count, given the nature of indictment, would not at this stage succeed,” Jordash said.
He noted that if individual charges could be challenged at this stage, their team would “certainly have much to say” and that the bench should not interpret their decision as meaning “we accept there is a case to answer”.
“The evidence is weak, and particularly weak in relation to many charges and liabilities [in the indictment],” Jordash said, adding that Stanisic soon intended to apply for provisional release.
“Don’t worry about interferences made in the way you proceed [with] your defence,” remarked Presiding Judge Alphons Orie. “The chamber doesn’t draw any negative inferences.”
Simatovic’s defence then took the floor and asked the judges to acquit the accused on all five counts listed in the indictment, which alleges that Simatovic and Stanisic established a training centre for Serbian paramilitary forces and other groups linked to the DB in Golubic, near the Croatian city of Knin, in April 1991.
According to the indictment, the two men organised, financed and directed the training at these facilities and also set up additional centres in other parts of Croatia and Bosnia.
“The defence believes that the prosecution has not adduced a single shred of evidence that Simatovic took part in the Golubic camp,” Mihajlo Bakrac, one of Simatovic’s lawyers, said.
He said that the prosecution did not prove that either Stanisic or Simatovic “established the camp” and subsequently provided no evidence about the type of training which took place there, and how it took place.
Bakrac said the assertion that Stanisic and Simatovic set up other DB-financed training centres in Bosnia was “totally unsupported”. He said there was no evidence that such centres even existed, much less that they were financed by the DB.
In addition, there is “no proof whatsoever” that any of the Serbian paramilitary groups mentioned in the indictment were under control of the DB, Bakrac said.
One of these groups, known the Scorpions, is alleged to have been a “special unit” of the DB.
Members of the Scorpions shot and murdered six Bosniak men and boys who were captured after the fall of the Srebrenica enclave in July 1995. A videotape of the murders – shot by the perpetrators - caused an outrage when it was broadcast on television across the region in 2005, and in 2007 a Serbian court found four members of the Scorpions guilty of murder.
According to the Simatovic defence, “a great deal of evidence adduced indicates that this unit was not established by the DB of Serbia” and was thus not under its control.
Further discussion of the Scorpions was dealt with in private session.
Another paramilitary group alleged to have been a special unit of the DB was Arkan’s Tigers, led by Zeljko Raznatovic, otherwise known as Arkan.
Arkan’s Tigers were considered one of most notorious paramilitary groups that operated in Bosnia and Croatia during the conflict, and they are alleged to have murdered scores of non-Serb civilians in various areas. Arkan was gunned down in a Belgrade hotel in 2000 before he could be arrested and tried in The Hague.
“The defence asserts that Arkan’s unit did not have functional or organisational ties to the DB,” Bakrac said.
He pointed to the testimony of one witness who stated that Arkan’s “immediate commander” was in fact an officer in the Yugoslav People’s Army, JNA, before it disbanded in May 1992.
He also asserted that Arkan was under “operational investigation” by the DB and “as such [Arkan’s Tigers] could not have been a special unit of theirs”.
Furthermore, Bakrac said the evidence demonstrated that senior Bosnian Serb political officials personally invited Arkan to Bosnia and the group’s “engagement was ordered directly by Republika Srpska president” Radovan Karadzic, who is currently standing trial at the tribunal.
“There is no evidence that the Serbian DB was involved in the deployment of these units,” Bakrac said. “…[There are] only rumours and hearsay which can only establish a connection between Simatovic and these units in an extremely remote way”.
Simatovic, his lawyer continued, “did not order, aid, organise or in any other way … assist the expulsions or deportations of non Serbs”.
The prosecution will respond to the defence arguments next week.
Rachel Irwin is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.
