Stanisic, Simatovic Get 15 Years Each for Persecuting Non-Serbs in Bosnia, Croatia

Jovica Stanisic i Franko Simatovic

On May 31, after a 20-year process, the Hague tribunal pronounced the final verdict against the former heads of the State Security Service of Serbia, Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic Frenki, sentencing them to 15 years in prison each as participants in the joint criminal endeavor for persecuting Muslims and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia.

With the verdict, the court increased by three years the first-instance verdicts of 12 years, pronounced to Stanisic, 72, and Simatovic, 73, in June 2021, for aiding and supporting the crimes of Red Berets in Bosanski Samac in 1992.

The Appellate Chamber pronounced Stanisic and Simatovic, as the protagonists of the criminal endeavor, guilty for the crimes of Red Berets, Serb Volunteers’ Guard of Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan and Scorpions in Bijeljina, Zvornik, Doboj, Bosanski Samac, Sanski Most, Trnovo and Dalj.

According to the indictment against Stanisic and Simatovic, former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic was heading the criminal endeavor and the main participants were Serb leaders from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. The Appellate Chamber found Stanisic and Simatovic guilty on five counts of the crimes of persecution, murder, deportation and forced relocation of Muslims and Croats from the mentioned municipalities.