UN Court: Two Milosevic Allies Have Convictions Extended

Facts

• UN appeals court judges extended the convictions of two former Serbian security officials and allies of the late Serbian Pres. Slobodan Milosevic on Wednesday, ruling that they were criminally responsible for their role in a plan to ethnically cleanse Bosnia and a Croatian town of non-Serbs during the Balkan wars.¹
• Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic saw their prison sentences rise from 12 to 15 years after the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals overturned their acquittals of involvement in crimes in Bosnia and Croatia.²
• Presiding Judge Graciela Gatti Santana said the men “shared the intent” to advance the “criminal purpose to forcibly and permanently remove the majority of non-Serbs from large areas of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.”³
• Stanisic, 72, and Simatovic, 73, were first convicted in 2021 for aiding and abetting crimes in just one Bosnian town, but prosecutors appealed to widen the scope of their crimes. The pair’s role in financing and training militias in the 1990s led to harsher convictions.⁴
• This landmark ruling is the first time the atrocities in Bosnia have been linked to the Milosevic regime. The former Serbian president died in custody in The Hague in 2006 before an official ruling could be made.⁵
• The conviction in the case dating back to 1992 , which cannot be appealed, marks the end of the longest-running war crimes prosecution relating to the Balkan wars.⁶

Sources: ¹Associated Press, ²Al Jazeera, ³News, ⁴Reuters, ⁵Yahoo News, and ⁶ABC News.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by Guardian. After decades, it's refreshing to see justice finally being served in some capacity as two of Slobodan Milosevic’s allies will pay for their participation in a plot to ethnically cleanse parts of the Balkans. While Milosevic died before he could be held liable, at least some members of his regime will be, which will serve as a reminder of Serbia’s role in the devastating Balkan wars.
• Narrative B, as provided by Balkan Insight. The convictions of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic show the UN’s hostility towards Serbia and its willingness to sentence innocent men to prison unjustly. There is no proof of any crimes from these two men, yet the UN only has one standard of guilt: if you’re a Serb, you're assumed guilty. The prosecution of Stanisic and Simatovic is part of a wider goal to blame all Serbs for the Balkan war and punish Serbia for the war from over 30 years ago.