Serbian Security Service Used Assassins, Engaged in Drug Trafficking

A former casino manager gave the Trial Chamber a glimpse of Serbia's underworld and its connections to government officials in testimony this week at the war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic. Following Serbia's recent massive crackdown on organized crime, this should come as no surprise to the public. Recent arrests and confessions have revealed a web of interconnections among organized crime, common criminals, politicians, government and party officials and war criminals. Throughout Milosevic's rule and for two years thereafter, Serbia was a criminal state -- with a thin veneer of legitimacy meant to fool the international community and at least some of the Serbs. Recent revelations in Serbia add support to Witness C-48's testimony.

C-48 was a young man who became attracted by the power, money and lifestyle of gangland Serbia. After landing a position at a Novi Sad casino, he was quickly promoted to manager and almost as quickly recruited by the Serbian State Security Service (DB). Not only did he become privy to tales of DB ordered liquidations and heroin trafficking, he betrayed his closest friends. In court, C-48 expressed 'shame' at his actions that led to an assault on one friend's elderly mother.

His boss at the casino, Veselin Vukotic, was a professional killer who confided in his young employee that he had carried out political liquidations in the Albanian emigree communities abroad at the behest of the Yugoslav Security Service and later the Serbian DB. One Kosovar Albanian exile he personally killed for the Serbian DB was Enver Hadriu, a human rights activist. The government strategy at that time for dealing with the Kosovar Albanians, Vukotic told him, was to liquidate the intelligentsia. Later, under Milosevic, it changed to one of broad societal oppression, which Vukotic thought far less effective since it elicited international condemnation.

In a rather startling revelation, C-48 testified that another known criminal and DB operative, Darko Asanin, told C-48 that he was given the task of organizing the transfer of large quantities of heroin to Croatia to be used as a special form of warfare to addict and thereby destroy the fighting morale of Croatian youth. 'I was horrified and flabbergasted,' C-48 told the Trial Chamber. 'These monstrous activities bordered on Nazi type activities.' The DB's involvement in heroin trafficking, if true, is more than ironic given that Serbian propaganda has stereotyped Kosovar Albanians as THE quintessential drug traffickers of the Balkans.

Asenin also told C-48 that he organized a group of young men, led by Pero Divljak, to cause unrest in Montenegro before the presidential elections there in 1997. In that election, Milo Djukanovic, who'd broken with Milosevic, was running against Momir Bulatovic, a Milosevic loyalist. Divljak and his group were discovered before they could carry out their mission -- and Djukanovic was elected.

From the Novi Sad DB chief, C-48 learned that the Red Berets were formed at the end of 1991, when the DB decided it needed a disciplined unit under its control. Other Serbian paramilitary units fighting in Croatia, such as Seselj's Chetniks, the White Eagles and Dusan Silni, were undisciplined and acting outside any organized chain of command.

The casino complex where C-48 worked served as a meeting place and playground for a cross section of Serbian criminals and politicians. Vukotic provided drugs and prostitutes for DB members who came for 'relaxation.' When asked by prosecutor Geoffrey Nice whether Milosevic knew officials in the DB frequented the casino and associated with criminals, C-48 said, 'As I knew all the circumstances, I am quite certain the accused knew his people came to the Royal and associated with criminals. I can't claim he new the details.' He testified to seeing photos of Vukotic with Milosevic's son and daughter.

Referring to the witness's written statement, Milosevic later followed up by asking C-48 if it was true that the DB used the casino 'to gain control over certain people by letting them gamble, and supplying them with prostitutes.' When C-48 said yes, Milosevic asked for the name of such an individual. The witness promptly replied, 'Miodrag 'Mile' Isakov, the [current] Deputy Prime Minister of the Serbian Government.' At the time, he said, he was president of the Independent Journalists Association. According to C-48, Isakov gambled and lost financial assistance awarded to the Association from the Soros Foundation. This is one time the Serbian public and officials are likely to take notice of testimony in the long-running trial of Slobodan Milosevic.

Vukotic also hosted more serious meetings of a group called the Backa Palanka Lobby, made up of individuals from the Serbian police, DB, information and propaganda department of the political apparatus and criminals. Among those C-48 identified as members were Mihajl Kertes (senior government official), Jovica Stanisic (head of the Serbian DB), Franko Simatovic (head of the Serbian DB special operations unit), Milorad Vucelic (Director of Radio Television Serbia (RTS)), Radovan Pankov (regional party official), the Popivoda brothers (one -- head of Novi Sad DB, other -- marketing director of RTS) and Veselin Asanin (DB operative and convicted criminal). The purpose of the Lobby, according to the witness, was to implement the decisions of the accused by harmonizing and coordinating activity among the various elements involved.

C-48 described several meetings of the Lobby where he was present. As a trusted DB operative, he was allowed there to assure the participants' needs (for coffee, drinks, etc.) were attended to. At a meeting in August 1992, for example, Jovica Stanisic began by relating to those assembled that the 'boss' (Milosevic) wanted to assure that his policy of creating a fait accompli in Croatia for the London Conference was implemented. That policy involved intimidating Croatians to move from designated territories in Croatia, creating Serb-populated areas that Serbia could then claim as its territory in a fait accompli at the upcoming London Conference. Stanisic said the 'boss' wanted them to proceed in a subtle manner, intimidating a few to instill fear in many.

The group also discussed Milan Panic, then President of the Federal presidency. Milosevic had wanted him in that position so he could work on getting sanctions against Serbia removed, but he was proving uncontrollable. Stanisic then inquired of Mihajl Kertes whether he was keeping Goran Hadzic, president of the Republic of Serbia Krajina (RSK), under control. When Kertes said he shouldn't worry, Stanisic reportedly replied, 'Good, good. We don't want him to think he's really the president.'

The following month, the Lobby met again. The participants joked about Panic having dismissed Kertes at the London Conference due to ethnic cleansing that occurred in Croatia. Stanisic then conveyed a message to Franko Simatovic (Frenki) from the 'boss' that he should step up actions in Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem (SBWS). He also warned him to calm down his guys, whose bragging threatened to disclose DB involvement in SBWS. Frenki replied they were young and 'without them we wouldn't be able to achieve anything.'

The third meeting C-48 testified about was the most controversial as Milosevic allegedly attended it. The time was March 1993. Milosevic, in Novi Sad for a regional meeting of his political party, came to the Lobby meeting afterward, escorted by Jovica Stanisic. According to the witness, Milosevic expressed pleasure at the way things were going in SBWS, and said he was 'looking forward to seeing how the Croatians will ask for the Krajina from me when just Serbs are living there. . . .' He then said 'all kinds of pressure should be maintained to create a united Serbian state,' consisting of the RS, RSK, Serbia and Montenegro.

Knowledgeable observers expressed disbelief that Milosevic would reveal so much in a meeting of ten associates, regardless of how close they might be to him. In cross examination, Milosevic declared he was not in Novi Sad at the time and the witness had fabricated this testimony. If it is true, it is the some of the closest evidence of a 'smoking gun' yet to appear in the trial -- at least in public sessions. Of course, it is up to the Trial Chamber to consider the witness's credibility and weigh his evidence.

The witness was privy to other conversations involving high level DB authorities (including Stanisic, Simatovic and Kertes) as they discussed how to control local Serbian authorities in Croatia and Bosnia. One conversation corroborated testimony from Milan Babic that he was replaced by Goran Hadzic, when Babic disagreed with directions coming from Serbia. In another, Simatovic compared Radovan Karadzic unfavorably with Hadzic: 'We gave him [Karadzic] everything and now he doesn't want to listen to us,' the witness quoted. The witness also described how the commander of paramilitary units in Erdut saluted and reported to Simatovic when he arrived at the camp.

Whether the Trial Chamber finds credible C-48's testimony about the Milosevic meeting of the Backa Palanka Lobby, the witness's detailed account of the DB use of criminals and criminal methods to ethnically cleanse parts of Croatia is hard to dismiss as fabricated. Indeed, C-48's testimony is corroborated by significant other evidence presented in the trial to date, not least of which was given recently by Arkan's secretary. C-48 has added to the evidence that the Serbian State Security controlled and manipulated events in the Serbian Krajina in Croatia. That directly contradicts Milosevic's defense that Serbia, and he as its President, was not involved in what he claims were civil wars in Croatia and Bosnia. Even if C-48's testimony is exaggerated, he's left Milosevic much to answer.