UN judges end longest-running war crimes prosecution dating back to the Balkan Wars.
United Nations judges have extended the sentences of two former allies of the late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to 15 years in the last case before the Hague tribunal from the 1990s Balkan wars.
Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic’s sentences were increased from 12 to 15 years on Wednesday as the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) overturned their acquittals of involvement in crimes in several Bosnian municipalities – and one Croatian – for their role in funding and training of Serbian militias during the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1992, appeal judges said.
Judge Graciela Gatti Santana said Stanisic, 72, and Simatovic, 73, “shared an intention to advance the common criminal plan to forcibly and permanently remove the majority of non-Serbs from large parts of Croatia and Bosnia”.
Neither man showed emotion as Santana delivered the verdict.
Stanisic was in court for the hearing, while Simatovic watched via video link from a UN detention unit.
The IRMCT’s decision in the retrial of Stanisic and Simatovic ends the longest-running war crimes prosecution dating back to the Balkan wars of the early 1990s.
“This ruling marks a milestone in the history of the mechanism… The Board of Appeal delivers the final judgment on appeal,” Santana said.
The Balkan Wars marked an emerging call for autonomy within Yugoslavia by nationalist groups following the death of President Josip Broz Tito.
Croatia and Slovenia were the first countries to try to gain independence in a conflict with the Serbian-dominated Yugoslav army.
Bosnia and Herzegovina was the next country to try to gain independence.
Stanisic, a former head of the Serbian state security service, and Simatovic, a senior intelligence official with the agency, are the only Serb officials convicted by a UN court of involvement in crimes in Bosnia.
Serbian armed forces ‘terror campaign’
Milosevic was tried for his alleged involvement in the bloody wars that broke out when the former Yugoslavia fell, but he died in his prison cell in 2006 before a verdict was reached.
The international court has also convicted Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic and army chief Ratko Mladic for the Balkan wars.
Stanisic and Simatovic were initially acquitted ten years ago by the Yugoslav UN war crimes tribunal, but an appeals chamber ordered a new trial.
In 2021, judges convicted the pair of helping to train and deploy Serb forces during the April 1992 takeover of Bosanski Samac.
Serb forces launched a “terror campaign” to drive out non-Serbs with rape, looting and the destruction of religious buildings in the city, judges said at the time.
They also held Bosnian Muslims and Croats in detention centers and subjected them to forced labour, repeated beatings, torture and sometimes murder.
The Balkan Wars killed about 130,000 people and displaced millions more.
The fallout from the war continues in the region, with clashes in northern Kosovo between ethnic Serbs and NATO-backed peacekeepers.