Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz expressed his satisfaction with the final verdict of the Appellate Council of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Courts (IRMCT) by the former head of the State Security Service (SDB) of the Ministry of the Interior of Serbia Jovica Stanišić and Franko Simatović, former commander of the Special Operations Unit (JSO) of the SDB, sentenced to prison terms of 15 years each.
Brammertz emphasized that the verdict reaffirmed that there was not a civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but an international conflict.
The Appellate Panel rejected the allegations from the appeals of Simatović and Stanišić, and accepted the prosecution’s appeal and concluded that they were responsible for participating in a joint criminal enterprise (JEU) whose goal was the violent removal of the non-Serb population throughout the duration of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The verdict found them guilty of crimes committed by various Serb forces in 1992 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Bijeljina, Zvornik, Bosanski Šamac, Doboj and Sanski Most, and for crimes committed in 1995 in Trnovo and Sanski Most, as well as for murder committed in Daljska Planina in Croatia in June 1992.
Prosecutor Brammertz said that he was particularly satisfied with the fact that the final verdict stated that Stanišić and Simatović were part of the Joint Criminal Eneterprise, which was one of the main reasons for filing an appeal against the first-instance verdict from 2021.
He reminded that according to the indictment from 2008, the JCE includes the then president of Serbia, Slobodan Milošević, and that the goal of the JCE was to remove Bosniaks and Croats from parts of the territory of BiH and Croatia in order to establish an ethnically pure Serbian state.
“The judgment of the appeals panel confirmed that the JCE included many parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Croatia. You noticed that the sentence was increased from 12 to 15 years in prison for both of them, which is a further reflection of the gravity of the crime that we presented as the prosecutor’s office,” said Brammertz.
Emphasizing that this was the last judgment of the Hague Tribunal regarding the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brammertz said that this judgment once again showed that there was no civil war or internal conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“This verdict showed that in Bosnia and Herzegovina it was not a civil, but an international conflict in which the political leadership of neighboring countries, in this case specifically Belgrade, also participated. I emphasize again that this is about the individual criminal responsibility of the military and political leadership, in this case the head of the intelligence services,” said Brammertz.
Brammertz also told reporters in The Hague that during the pronouncement of the latest Hague verdict, the prosecution’s thoughts are with the victims and their families, many of whom are still awaiting justice.
“This is the last proceeding in The Hague, but there are hundreds of cases that need to be dealt with by national courts, and we will continue to provide them with all the necessary assistance in the coming years,” concluded Bramertz.
