Former head of Serbia's state security service Jovica Stanisic appears in court at the UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) in The Hague, Netherlands May 31, 2023. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw/Pool

Milosevic aides guilty, UN judges expand conviction

U.N. judges on Wednesday expanded the convictions of two former Serbian spymasters who worked for Yugoslav ex-president Slobodan Milosevic.

Published on:

01 Jun 2023, 12:40 am

By Stephanie van den Berg

THE HAGUE (Reuters) -U.N. judges on Wednesday expanded the convictions of two former Serbian spymasters who worked for Yugoslav ex-president Slobodan Milosevic and sentenced them to 15 years in the final case before the tribunal in The Hague dating from the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

The former head of Serbia's state security service, Jovica Stanisic, and his subordinate Franko "Frenki" Simatovic could be held responsible for crimes in several Bosnian municipalities and one Croatian one due to their role in financing and training Serb militias during the break-up of Yugoslavia, appeals judges said.

Subordinate of former head of Serbia's state security service Jovica Stanisic, Franko "Frenki" Simatovic, appears on a screen in court at the UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) in The Hague, Netherlands May 31, 2023. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw/Pool

The Appeal chamber found Stanisic and Simatovic "shared the intent to further the common criminal plan to forcibly and permanently remove the majority of non-Serbs from large areas of Croatia and Bosnia", presiding judge Judge Graciela Gatti Santana said, reading a summary of the verdict expanding their convictions.

(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg; Editing by Toby Chopra and Philippa Fletcher)