Scorpions trial continues

Scorpions trial continues

He claims he only learned about the Trnovo crime a few days before the videos recording of it was broadcast in the media.

At the time, however, he traveled to Trnovo personally to bring Scorpions members back to Đeletovce.

Milanović denied any connection between the MUP and RSK armed formations, including the Trnovo case. Still, he said Radovan Stojičić, a.k.a. Badža, arrived in Krajina in 1991 to take over command of MUP’s special forces from the post of the local Territorial Defense commander.

After that, Milanović claims, Radovan Stojičić was no longe based in Krajina, and they only met as friends. Milanović said it was Stojičić’s idea to in 1995 to send the Scorpions to reinforce Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) near Trnovo.

According to him, he met with Stojičić accidentally in Belgrade at the time, when then deputy Serbian minister of the interior asked him to “help those people“.

"I had my doubts until then since Croats were saber-rattling, but when Stojičić told me this, I suggested to my government that we should send a battalion to Trnovo“, Milan Milanović said.

MUP connections

One of the counts of Jovica Stanišić’s and Frenki Simatović’s Hague indictments is related to Trnovo, treating Scorpions as a State Security (DB) unit. Stanišić at the time headed the DB.

Legal representatives of the families of the victims say that even though correspondence between MUP and VRS officials clearly indicated that the Scorpions were treated as a MUP unit, the Serbian War Crimes court indictments treat the formation as paramilitary.

At the start of the trial on November 20 last year, the first accused, Scorpions commander Slobodan Medić, pleaded not guilty to the charges of the murder of six Srebrenica Muslims in Godinjske Bare near Trnovo, Bosnia, on July 16 or 17, 1995.

The second accused, however, admitted to taking part in the crimes, while the third and fourth accused denied assisting the crime. The fifth accused before the Belgrade court denied taking part in the murders.

Five victims of the execution documented in a video footage were identified as: Safet Fejzić, Azmir Alishpahić, Sidik Saltić, Smail Ibrahimović and Saib Salkić, while the sixth victim remains unidentified.