The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague has rejected a request for the early release of Jovica Stanišić, the former head of Serbia’s State Security Service (SDB), who is serving a 15-year prison sentence for crimes committed during the wars in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia.
Mechanism President Graciela Gatti Santana stated that although Stanišić had formally served two-thirds of his sentence, the gravity of the crimes and the absence of sufficient evidence of rehabilitation weighed against his early release. No credible humanitarian grounds were presented that would justify a different decision.
Stanišić, who headed Serbia’s State Security Service, was convicted together with Franko Simatović of crimes linked to Serbian forces operating during the wars of the 1990s.
In its final 2023 judgment, the Appeals Chamber found Stanišić and Simatović responsible as members of a joint criminal enterprise for crimes committed by Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina in Bijeljina, Zvornik, Bosanski Šamac, Doboj and Sanski Most in 1992, as well as in Trnovo and Sanski Most in 1995. The Chamber also found them responsible for a murder committed in Daljska Planina, Croatia, in June 1992. Their sentences were increased to 15 years each.
The court found that the joint criminal enterprise had the objective of forcibly and permanently removing the majority of non-Serbs from large areas of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina through crimes including persecution, murder, deportation and forcible transfer.
The case also established a direct connection between Serbia’s State Security structures and crimes committed on the ground. The Mechanism found that Stanišić and Simatović organized the training and deployment of Serb forces that participated in the takeover of Bosanski Šamac and the subsequent crim
