HAGUE: STANIŠIĆ AND SIMATOVIĆ ARE DECLARED GUILTY OF WAR CRIMES BY FINAL VERDICT AND GOT 15 YEARS IN PRISON EACH

THE HAGUE, MAY 31 (ONASA) – The Appeals Chamber of the Mechanism for International Criminal Courts handed down the final verdict against the heads of the Serbian State Security Service, Jovica Stanišić and Franko Simatović, who were sentenced to 15 years in prison each.
The chairwoman of the five-member Appellate Council, Graciela Gatti Santana, said that this is the final verdict after the proceedings started before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, whose successor
Mechanism.
The verdict was delivered by judges Graciela Gatti Santana, Lee G. Muthoga, Aminatta Lois Runeni N’gum, Yusuf Aksar, and Claudia Hoefer.
Stanišić was present in the courtroom and Simatović was allowed to watch the verdict via video link.
With this verdict, they were also found guilty of crimes in Bijeljina, Zvornik, Doboj, Trnovo, Bosanski Samac and Sanski Most.
Stanišić, the former head of the State Security Service of Serbia, and Simatović, the former commander of the Special Operations Unit (JSO), were sentenced to 12 years in prison each for participating in crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The first-instance verdict found them guilty of aiding and abetting murders, deportation, forced relocation and persecution in Bosanski Šamac.
The proceedings against Stanišić and Simatović were the last in which judges of the Mechanism, as the successor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), determined whether former Serbian officials were guilty of war crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, and what was the role of the neighboring states were at war, and whether the accused are responsible for the actions of paramilitary units.
The proceedings against Stanišić and Simatović have lasted for two decades and are one of the longest proceedings before the Hague Tribunal.
They were arrested on March 13, 2003 in Serbia, after which Simatović was transferred to the ICTY on May 30, and Stanišić 11 days later.
Their trial began after six years on the third amended indictment.
After the first-instance trial, the Hague Tribunal acquitted Stanišić and Simatović in 2013, but in 2015 the Appellate Panel accepted the Prosecution’s appeal and, due to irregularities in the procedure, ordered that the trial be repeated on the same indictment.
The new trial of Stanišić and Simatović began on June 13, 2017 and lasted five years, with a half-year break due to the coronavirus pandemic. After the renewed proceedings, the MMKS issued a first-instance verdict in 2021 by which Stanišić and Simatović were sentenced to 12 years in prison each for participating in the crimes committed in Bosanski Šamac in Bosnia and Herzegovina.