Franko Simatović

For at least two years, officers at the Serbian Interior Ministry's State Security Service kept records thoroughly about their outgoing on personnel. About every two weeks, they made a list of all the people receiving per diem allowances and the total amount of money paid to them.

The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague on Wednesday increased the sentences handed down to the former chief of Serbian State Security, Jovica Stanisic, and his deputy Franko Simatovic, to 15 years in prison each, rejecting their appeals against their convictions.

Follow the latest updates from our reporters in The Hague and Bosnia as the UN's war crimes tribunal delivers its appeal verdict in the retrial of former Serbian State Security officials Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic.

The UN court in The Hague is delivering its final verdict on Wednesday in the war crimes retrial of top Serbian State Security officials Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic, who have appealed against their 12-year sentences for involvement in wartime crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The UN's International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague announced on Tuesday that the verdict on Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic's appeal against their conviction for war crimes in Bosnia will be handed down on May 31.

The prosecution urged the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague on Wednesday to convict Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic of participating in a joint criminal enterprise, along with other Serb political, military and police officials, aimed at forcibly removing non-Serbs from large areas of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina during wartime.

Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic urged the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague on Tuesday to reverse the verdict sentencing them to 12 years in prison each and acquit them of aiding and abetting Serb fighting units that committed crimes in the Bosanski Samac area during the Bosnian war in 1992.

Franko Simatovic (right) and Jovica Stanisic in court in June 2017. Photo: EPA/Michael Kooren/Reuters pool.

The prosecution will then present its own appeal against the verdict on Wednesday, urging the UN court to convict the defendants of other wartime crimes of which they were initially acquitted and impose longer sentences.

Seven days before his 22nd birthday, Haris Talic was among more than 60 Bosniaks and Croats captured in the Sanski Most area of Bosnia and Herzegovina in September 1995 and then killed.

Judge Carmel Agius, president of the UN's International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals, told the court in The Hague on Thursday that the appeal verdict in the trial of former Serbian State Security Service officials Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic will be delivered "about this time next year".