Prosecutor Urges Life Imprisonment for Serbian Security Officials

The prosecutor at the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague, Douglas Stringer, urged the UN court on Monday to impose life sentences on former Serbian State Security officials Jovica Stanisic and Franko 'Frenki' Simatovic for crimes committed during the wars in Croatia and Bosnia.

"Let history say that this chamber, in its final judgement in this case, based on the totality of all the evidence, found that Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic are criminally responsible beyond reasonable doubt as members of a joint criminal enterprise," Stringer told the court.

"Let history say that based of the gravity of the crimes committed and the roles this accused played in committing them, that this chamber imposed on Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic the one sentence proportionate to their crimes - life imprisonment," the prosecutor added.

Stanisic, the former head of Serbian State Security, and Simatovic, his former deputy, are being retried for alleged participation in a joint criminal enterprise whose aim was the forcible and permanent removal of the majority of non-Serbs, mainly Croats and Bosniaks, from large areas of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in the period from 1991 to 1995.

Neither of the defendants was present in court for the first of three days of closing arguments, as both are on provisional release.

Stringer started his argument with crimes committed in Skabrnja and Vukovar in Croatia in the autumn of 1991 and in Bijeljina in Bosnia in the spring of 1992.

He said that the crimes "shared common perpetrators and had the same outcome - the forcible removal of the non-Serb population", describing them as part of a systematic campaign of violence.

Creating ethnic Serb...