Red beret

The aviator glasses were his signature, together with the red beret. Growing up in the 1990s in Serbia, for me the red beret represented a symbol - affiliation, both formal and informal, with Serbian state security special units, notorious fighters who took part in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Belgrade Higher Court on Thursday convicted Nikola Vida Lujic, a former member of the Special Operations Unit, an elite Serbian special forces unit also known as the Red Berets, of raping a Bosnian women in Brcko on June 20, 1992, and sentenced him to eight years in prison.

The defence for Jovica Stanisic denied that the Red Berets unit was associated with the Serbian State Security Service, SDB – while a Hague prosecution expert witness maintained that they were the Serbian service’s special forces.