Paramilitaries or "Volunteers?" Bosnian Witness Describes Frenki's Training Camp

Protected witness B-1244, a civil official in the wartime administration of a municipality in Bosnia, provided revealing information about the involvement of the Yugoslav Army (JNA) and Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs (the police ministry, or MUP) during the Bosnian Serb takeover of his municipality, which remained unnamed throughout the course of the testimony. The takeover and subsequent offensives resulted in the detention, torture, sexual abuse and murder of non-Serb inhabitants. Perhaps most importantly, B-1244 gave eyewitness evidence linking Franko Simatovic a.k.a. Frenki – then head of the Special Operations Unit of the state security division of the MUP (DB) - to the training of Serb paramilitaries who played a devastating role in the Bosnian conflict. Simatovic himself was brought to The Hague in May of this year to face charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes for his involvement in persecution against non-Serbs in regions of Croatia and Bosnia.

In an unusually accomplished cross-examination, Milosevic guided B-1244 to alternative explanations for much of what the prosecution had established, advancing the claim that any Serbian involvement in the Bosnian conflict was due solely to the participation of patriotic “volunteers” acting in an individual capacity without institutional links to state organs. As with almost all witnesses who held positions of power during the partition of Yugoslavia and who believed – or claimed to believe – in the ideological brand of Serb nationalism promoted by Milosevic, witness B-1244 proved to be a compliant witness for the defendant. He rarely disagreed with Milosevic’s portrayal of events, even when that portrayal was in plain contradiction to his testimony during Prosecutor Dermot Groome’s questioning. And as with almost all witnesses whose identities are protected, B-1244’s appearance took the form of a judicial balancing act between open and closed courtroom sessions, with the court weighing the witness’s need for protection against the world’s interest in a transparent trial.

These factors make it difficult to predict how much of B-1244’s testimony will be given full weight by the court, and how much was called into question during the cross-examination. One of the most significant portions of the testimony revolved around a paramilitary training camp near Ilok, in the Croatian territory of Eastern Slavonia. At the end of March 1992, B-1244 helped to select 20 Bosnian Serb men under thirty years old from his municipality for military training at the camp. In direct examination, B-1244 said he was later told that the Serbian MUP organized the camp, and his eyewitness observations supported that conclusion. Another municipal official asked the witness to visit the camp shortly after the 20 men left for their training, instructing him to contact Milan Prodanic of the DB in Belgrade to arrange access. B-1244 went to the MUP building in Belgrade, where Prodanic received him and advised him to follow a vehicle that was about to leave for the camp from the MUP building. Frenki Simatovic was in that vehicle - a jeep with police license plates - accompanied by men in camouflage and red berets.

Once at the camp, B-1244 talked to the men from his town and to other groups of men from Serbia. He told the court that the camp instructors were members of special units of the Serbian MUP, identifying some by code names, and others in closed session. Given the scope and detail of this evidence, Milosevic’s attempt to disclaim any link between the MUP and the training camp must be counted among the least convincing aspects of the cross-examination. It was uncontested that Frenki had been in civilian clothes at the time and had stopped at a house about one km from the actual training grounds for “meetings,” asking one of the armed men in camouflage to show B-1244 around the premises. Milosevic used this information to suggest that Frenki had been simply “going about his business,” and that “someone else told you how to get to the camp… so there is no link between [Frenki] and the camp.” That Frenki was simply going about his business was entirely clear from the testimony, though perhaps not in the innocuous way Milosevic intended his description to reflect.

The twenty local men returned from the camp to their Bosnian municipality in April, arriving with 30 additional men from Serbia in military helicopters and wearing red berets and uniforms with the insignia of the Grey Wolves, a special operations unit of the Serbian DB. Upon arrival, the 50 men were incorporated into the existing JNA brigade in the area, and remained after the official dissolution of the JNA as part of the new army of the Republika Srpska (VRS). When asked by the prosecution whether “Frenki Simatovic’s men” participated in the actual military takeover of the town during the night of April 16-17 1992, B-1244 replied that they played “a significant role.”

Milosevic later elicited clearly contradictory testimony from the witness to the effect that 28 of the 30 Serbian men were members of the Serbian Radical Party who arrived in the municipality as volunteers with no link to Simatovic or to the state security department of the MUP. In an excellent re-direct examination, Groome asked B-1244 whether all the “volunteers” were trained at the Ilok camp. After receiving an affirmative answer, Groome proceeded: “Was the camp at Ilok run by the Serbian Radical Party or by someone else?” B-1244 responded: “Well, they said it was a MUP camp.”

Milosevic’s cross-examination was somewhat more successful when it came to dissociating the MUP from the activities of a man referred to in code as #16 in the testimony. #16 was a Serbian man who played a prominent military role in the Bosnian Serb take-over and control of the municipality. According to B-1244’s testimony, #16’s activities – including looting and mistreatment of non-Serbs – proved extremely divisive among the local leadership. To some, he was a popular hero, and in appreciation of his actions the municipal crisis staff at one time authorized him to take two cars considered “war booty” from abandoned Croat or Muslim homes.

For the purposes of this indictment, the importance of #16’s role lies in his links to the Serbian DB. In late April or early May of 1992, the witness drove #16 to a meeting with Frenki Simatovic on the grounds of the MUP in Belgrade. At the meeting, Simatovic requested a written report from #16 covering events on the ground in the Bosnian municipality. Milosevic quite correctly highlighted the fact that at no time did the witness hear Frenki issue orders or instructions; rather, he asked for information, which was ostensibly part of his job at the DB. The background evidence is nonetheless suggestive of greater involvement: Frenki was meeting with #16, and the meeting was held in a structure that seemed to be housing several young paramilitaries in red berets – all on the grounds of the Serbian MUP.

Nor was that meeting the only time B-1244 saw links between #16 and the MUP. In late May 1992, # 16 was dismissed from duty by the commander of the JNA brigade that had incorporated the 50 men trained at the camp near Ilok. Other soldiers in the brigade allegedly threatened to leave as well, and a delegation of local officials immediately met with the commander’s superior. As a result of their intervention, #16 was appointed commander of the unit from which he had just been dismissed. This seems to have exacerbated the dispute over his actions, and B-1244 described going to Belgrade about a month later to “find a solution to #16.” The witness was part of a local delegation that met with several officials in Belgrade, culminating in a meeting with Frenki and a JNA officer, during which Frenki allegedly exclaimed: “what fool appointed him [#16] to such a large unit!” Subsequently, a call was made from the office to Ratko Mladic, leader of the newly formed VRS, who allegedly sharply reprimanded the local officials for going to Belgrade rather than dealing with the problem through him.

Standing alone, this testimony is indeed equivocal. On the one hand, Milosevic correctly highlighted that it portrays Frenki as not directly in charge of #16, and that he did not at any rate approve of #16’s appointment to a command position. The Belgrade officials felt they didn’t have the competence to act directly, so they called Mladic, who incontestably did. And Mladic also seems to have felt that the delegation overstepped by going to Belgrade. The basic fact remains, however, that the Bosnian officials did go to Belgrade hoping to find a solution, did in fact meet with Frenki, and were immediately put into telephone contact with Mladic from the Belgrade office. The testimony becomes more probative of the prosecution’s case when put into the context of other witnesses who have provided extensive evidence on the relationship of the Serb paramilitary Red Berets and the Serbian State Security Service under the supervision of Simatovic, Jovica Stanisic (chief of the DB), and the Accused.

Milosevic ended this portion of his cross-examination: “is it quite clear from what the Belgrade people said and from Mladic’s response that this matter was the under the jurisdiction of the Republika Srpska and no organ of Yugoslavia could meddle in it?” Despite B-1244’s affirmative response, subsequent events call into question this conclusion. Some days after the delegation’s conversation with Mladic, #16 was arrested by the VRS. He then asked the witness - his ally at the time - to contact Frenki in Belgrade for help in obtaining release. Groome asked the witness whether #16 ever asked him to contact Mladic for help. B-1244 replied that he had not.

#16 was ultimately released – seemingly at the intervention of Stanisic - and went home to Serbia, only to return that autumn with a group of about 20 other men from Serbia at the request of municipal officials in Bosnia. #16 agreed to return only if a letter was sent to the Serbian MUP explaining the municipality’s request and obtaining permission for #16 to return as a “volunteer,” so as to avoid future “unpleasantries,” such as another arrest. B-1244 personally delivered such a letter signed by the president of the municipal crisis staff to Prodanic in Belgrade. Officials at the DB in Belgrade said they would consider the request and “try for a positive answer.” #16 and his men were ultimately subject to a criminal investigation and trial for their subsequent activities in the region.

Despite some able questioning by Milosevic, the idea that the men who arrived – armed, uniformed and trained - to aid local Bosnian Serbs could all have been individual volunteers strains credulity, based on B-1244’s evidence alone. Speaking of #16, Milosevic asked the witness whether it was clear that he was “absolutely a volunteer from within Serbia who won the respect and confidence among the people in your municipality.” B-1244 agreed, implicitly refuting much of his preceding testimony about the involvement of the DB and JNA in events in Bosnia, including #16’s presence there. Whether or not the answer was disingenuous depends on how one defines a volunteer. It is certainly possible to volunteer to be trained and incorporated into military and police structures. Perhaps this view explains B-1244’s response to a question Groome posed during the re-direct examination: “Are you aware of any other situation in which a volunteer arrived and had a brigade placed under his command?” The witness replied: “I’m not aware of another volunteer in charge of a brigade.”