According to an article run by the Belgrade-based Blic daily on Tuesday, the Office has obtained documents confirming that the SAJ armed the 'Scorpions' in March 1999 and that the Scorpions unit was officially listed as part of the Serbian Interior Ministry with the consent of the Ministry's public security department chief Vlastimir Djordjevic.
Djordjevic, who is accused by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) of war crimes in Kosovo, is believed to be hiding in Russia. Some 'Scorpions' members are also on trial for killing 14 local Albanian civilians in Podujevo, Kosovo, in 1999.
According to documents provided by the above-mentioned Office, the then commander of SAJ, Zoran Simovic, took command of the Scorpions unit in March 1999. He and the Scorpions commander Slobodan Medic, who was arrested last week immediately after the tape was shown in the ICTY courtroom, led Scorpions members to Podujevo on 28 March 1999 and on the same day 14 local inhabitants were killed.
Sasa Cvjetan, a member of the Scorpions, is again being tried in Belgrade for this crime after the Supreme Court quashed the initial sentence of 20 years' imprisonment against him.
Medic, who was arrested last week, said during the first trial of Cvjetan that Scorpions was "an elite unit formed in 1992 and that they were very disciplined and that they carried out the most difficult duties in Bosnia and Croatia".
The head of the Humanitarian Law Fund in Belgrade, Natasa Kandic, who was the first to obtain the footage of the killing of Serbrenica civilians and sent it to the Hague-based tribunal and the special war crimes tribunal in Belgrade, said last week that Scorpions were involved in crimes in the eastern Croatian towns of Tovarnik and Vukovar and the Bosnian town of Brcko. During the war they were deployed at the Djeletovci oil field in eastern Croatia, which they used as a source of funds for themselves, she added.