Retrial Begins for 2 Serbs at U.N. War Crimes Tribunal
"That was true two decades ago when genocide and ethnic cleansing began,
and it remains true today." At the opening of the trial on Tuesday, Douglas Stringer, a prosecutor, portrayed the two former secret police chiefs as close to Mr. Milosevic, who had himself gained control of the institutions and agencies of the federal government of what was then Yugoslavia.
While the judges in that trial ruled that the defendants had issued no "specific direction" to commit crimes, the appeals
judges said no such proof was required to prove a criminal conspiracy or the aiding and abetting of crimes.
By MARLISE SIMONSJUNE 13, 2017
PARIS — Two former secret police chiefs, once held to be among the most powerful men in Serbia, went on trial Tuesday for the
second time, accused of running a lethal network of covert operations during the 1992-95 conflict that broke up Yugoslavia.
The defendants, Jovica Stanisic, the former head of Serbia’s state security,
and Franko Simatovic, his deputy, were acquitted of similar charges in 2013 after a three-year trial at the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
His chief of staff, Gen. Momcilo Perisic, was convicted and sentenced to 27 years for aiding and abetting war crimes in Bosnia and Croatia,
but the verdict was overturned on appeal in 2013 because no "specific direction" to commit crimes had been proved.
Serge Brammertz, the tribunal’s chief prosecutor, told the Security Council last week
that despite the large body of evidence proven in "case after case," the denials and the refusal to accept facts, even by government officials, were "loud and clear." Please verify you’re not a robot by clicking the box.