The trial chamber of the Hague war crimes tribunal in the Stanisic and Simatovic case concluded on Thursday that from 1991 to 1995 there existed a joint criminal enterprise, led by the late Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, whose aim was to ethnically cleanse areas of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina of Croats and Muslims in order to annex them to Serbia and create a Greater Serbia.
At this stage of the trial, all the evidence supports the allegation that there was a joint criminal enterprise aimed at permanently removing the non-Serb population from parts of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina through murder, deportation, forcible transfer and persecution, presiding judge Alphons Orie said at a hearing at which the judges dismissed the motion for acquittal filed by the accused Franko Simatovic, former commander of the special operations units of the Serbian state security service (SDB).
Under ICTY rules, an accused may seek acquittal after the close of the prosecution case and explain to the trial chamber why they think the prosecutors failed to prove their responsibility. Simatovic exercised this right, while the defence team representing the other accused in the case, former SDB chief Jovica Stanisic, said they would not present any arguments even though they thought that the prosecution failed to prove their client's responsibility.
Stanisic and Simatovic are charged with five counts of crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war that were committed in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina through persecution, murder, deportation and other inhumane acts. They are accused as members of the joint criminal enterprise that also involved former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, Bosnian and Croatian Serb leaders Ratko Mladic, Radovan Karadzic, Biljana Plavsic, Milan Martic, Goran Hadzic and Milan Babic, Serbian Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj, and paramilitary commander Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan.
The trial chamber has heard from prosecution witnesses, such as Croatian government official Ana Marija Radic, that 220,000 Croats were expelled from their homes in Serb-occupied areas of Croatia, Orie said.
The trial chamber concluded that there was enough evidence at the present stage of the trial to prove that the Serb forces had committed crimes in Serb-controlled parts of Croatia, that the SDB had played a key role in the so-called Serb Autonomous District of Krajina, and that the Serb paramilitary forces had been directly responsible to Stanisic.
The trial was set to resume on June 14 when the two defence teams would present their cases.
