Stanisic and Simatovic, Belgrade’s Security Strongmen

"Milosevic's men on the ground" was the most common description of these two leading Serbian state security officials - Jovica Stanisic, chief of the interior ministry's State Security Service and his right-hand man, Franko 'Frenki' Simatovic, commander of the service's Special Operations Unit.

On June 30, the UN's International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, which is dealing with the final cases from the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague, will hand down its verdict after the two men's retrial.

The indictment alleges that they were part of a joint criminal enterprise together with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, Serbian Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj, Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic, Croatian Serb commander Milan Martic, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic and Bosnian Serb ex-president Biljana Plavsic.

Their aim, the indictment says, was the forcible and permanent removal of the majority of non-Serbs from large areas of Croatia and Bosnia.

The prosecution believes that they controlled and used various units for this purpose from 1991 onwards - the Knindze ('Ninjas' from the town of Knin), the Scorpions, Arkan's Tigers (officially known as the Serbian Volunteer Guard), the Red Berets and the Special Operations Unit.

The leader of the Knindze, Dragan Vasiljkovic, known as Captain Dragan, was convicted by a Croatian court in 2017, but none of the other units' battlefield commanders have never faced trial for war crimes.

However, the Red Berets' last commander, Milorad Ulemek, known as Legija, was sentenced to 40 years in jail for his role in the assassination of late Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic in 2003, while two other former commanders,...