A panel of United Nations judges on May 31 have rejected the appeals by two former Serbian intelligence officers against their convictions two years ago for murder, crimes against humanity, and other offenses in western Bosnia during the 1992-95 war there, and expanded their sentences in the process.
Jovan Stanisic and Franko Simatovic were each sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2021 in a retrial that followed acquittals in 2013. They were convicted of crimes that included murder, deportation, forcible transfer, and persecution in what prosecutors called brutal "ethnic cleansing" at Bosanski Samac in 1992.
Prosecutors asked that Stanisic and Simatovic be convicted of crimes of which they were previously acquitted in addition to additional actions in Croatia.
They also say both men oversaw the establishment of training centers throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia, and that the brutal crimes of Bosanski Samac reflected a pattern used for months at other locations.
The judges on the Appeals Chamber of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (UNIRMCT), the successor to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), agreed with the prosecutors, lengthening the sentences to 15 years in the final case the panel will hear concerning the regime of the late Yugoslav and Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.
Franko Simatović listened to the verdict from prison in The Hague.
"The Appeals Chamber granted part of the Prosecution’s appeal, finding that the Trial Chamber erred in not convicting Mr. Stanisic and Mr. Simatovic under the mode of joint criminal enterprise liability," the panel said in a statement.
"The Appeals Chamber determined that the Trial Chamber erred in assessing Mr. Stanisic’s and Mr. Simatovic’s other contributions to the common criminal purpose. The Appeals Chamber also found that they shared the intent to further the common criminal purpose," it added in an explanation for the decision.
Stanisic was head of the Serbian Interior Ministry's State Security Service in 1992-98.
Simatovic commanded an elite special forces unit within the Yugoslav State Security Service in 1991-98.
Stanisic's defense lawyers argued that he became "a key peacemaker" who contributed to ending conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.
Stanisic and Simatovic were detained in 2003 and their initial trial lasted from June 2009 until January 2013.