UN war crimes court convicts two Serbs over Bosnia atrocities

THE HAGUE, Netherlands: A United Nations court on Wednesday convicted two former allies of late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic of aiding and abetting crimes committed by Serb paramilitaries in a Bosnian town in 1992.

It is the first time that Serbian officials have been convicted by a UN court of involvement in crimes in Bosnia. However, the court said there was not sufficient evidence to convict them of similar crimes committed in other towns and villages in Bosnia and Croatia as the former Yugoslavia violently disintegrated in the early 1990s.

Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic were convicted of aiding and abetting the crimes of murder, deportation, forcible transfer and persecution in the town of Bosanski Samac, and each was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment. The judgment can be appealed.

Stanisic is a former head of Serbia’s State Security Service, and Simatovic was a senior intelligence operative with the service. “The trial chamber is satisfied that the accused provided practical assistance which had a substantial effect on the commission of the crimes of murder, forcible displacement and persecution committed in Bosanski Samac and were aware that their acts assisted in their commission,” Presiding Judge Burton Hall said.

Stanisic and Simatovic were originally acquitted in 2013 by judges who said prosecutors had failed to prove important elements of their links to the crimes. Appeals judges quashed the not-guilty verdicts in 2015 and ordered the retrial that took place at the UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals.

The verdicts Wednesday are the final UN prosecution in The Hague for crimes committed during the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia. Earlier this month, appeals judges at the same court confirmed former Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic's convictions for his role in atrocities throughout the Bosnian war, and upheld his life sentence.