The Hague

The third and final day of closing arguments in the retrial of former Serbian State Security officials Jovica Stanisic and Franko 'Frenki' Simatovic at the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague on Wednesday saw disputes between prosecution and defence over incidents from the 1990s.

The defence teams of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic urged the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague on Tuesday to acquit both men of committing crimes during the wars in Croatia and Bosnia from 1991 to 1995.

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.

Closing arguments in the case against former Serbian State Security officials Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic, who are accused of controlling Serb fighters who committed crimes during the Croatian and Bosnian wars, are being heard from Monday to Wednesday at the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague.

Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapic on Monday proposed the sacking of Minister of Justice, Human and Minority Rights Vladimir Leposavic after he expressed doubt about the rulings of international courts classifying the 1995 Srebrenica massacres by Bosnian Serb forces as genocide.

Krivokapic said he called on the minister to resign in a private conversation, but Leposavic refused.

After a meeting with LDK MPs, party leader Lumir Abdixhiku said that the party would take part in an upcoming vote in parliament on Kosovo's next president, with former assembly speaker Vjosa Osmani widely seen as the frontrunner.

The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has turned down an appeal from Darko Mrdja, a former member of a police intervention squad at the Public Security Station in the city of Prijedor, against the verdict convicting him of crimes against humanity.

Montenegro's Minister of Justice, Human and Minority Rights Vladimir Leposavic. Photo: Parliament of Montenegro.

"The embassy is concerned with comments casting doubt about what occurred in Srebrenica in 1995. We look for clarity and hope the government will unequivocally condemn the massacre and call it what it was - genocide," the US embassy said in a post on Twitter.

The Atlantic Association, an organisation representing Albanian-Americans who describe themselves as "proud former KLA [Kosovo Liberation Army] soldiers", sent a letter to US President Joe Biden on Wednesday urging him to intervene to shift the Hague-based Kosovo Specialist Chambers war crimes court to Kosovo itself.

The Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague on Wednesday turned down a request for release on probation from Stanislav Galic, a wartime general and commander of the Bosnian Serb Army's Sarajevo-Romanija Corps, who is serving a life sentence for crimes against humanity in a German prison.