Serbian people

A senior official from the Serbian State Security Service, Franko 'Frenki' Simatovic, arrived at a covert paramilitary training camp near the town of Ilok in Croatia in the spring of 1992 - one of many that would allegedly be set up by Serbian security officials during the wars that erupted as Yugoslavia collapsed.

The first-instance verdict in the retrial of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic in The Hague is scheduled for June 30, the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals said on Thursday.

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.

On January 7, when Orthodox Christians mark Christmas, a Serbian Orthodox bishop in Germany gave an interview to Balkan news outlet NewsMax Adria. His remarks, however, were more political than religious.

The president of the UN's International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague, Carmel Agius, told the UN Security Council on Monday evening that the final verdict in the case against wartime Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic is due in May next year.

Serbian Orthodox Church Metropolitan bishop of Montenegro, Metropolitan Amfilohije (Radovic) leads a protest rally in Podgorica, Montenegro. Photo:PA-EFE/BORIS PEJOVIC

"Metropolitan Amfilohije denied that he violated the ban by the national coordination body for infectious diseases on public gatherings," Milanovic told the daily newspaper Pobjeda.

According to him, some of the events that preceded the assassination were not taken seriously enough.
Danilovic told daily "Kurir" that even 17 years after Djindjic's murder, he hadn't had full knowledge of all the details related to the crime.

A defence witness at former Serbian Security Service officials Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic's retrial said he knew Serbian paramilitary units were operating in Croatia in 1991 but didn't know about crimes they committed.

The latest hearing in the case against Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic was held at the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague on Tuesday, when the first defence witness in their retrial for wartime crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia gave testimony behind closed doors.

Mirjana Markovic with her husband, Slobodan Milosevic, in 1997. Photo: Srdjan Suki/EPA.

The urn containing the ashes of Mirjana Markovic, widow of former Serbian and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, was buried next to her late husband in the garden of their family home in the eastern Serbian town of Pozarevac on Saturday.