BELGRADE, May 9 (Hina) - Franko Simatovic aka Frenki, the founder and ex-commander of the Red Berets, Serbia's special operations units, has told a Belgrade district court investigating judge he is willing to be turned over the U.N.
war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Belgrade's Blic daily said on Friday.
BELGRADE, May 9 (Hina) - Franko Simatovic aka Frenki, the founder
and ex-commander of the Red Berets, Serbia's special operations
units, has told a Belgrade district court investigating judge he is
willing to be turned over the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague,
Belgrade's Blic daily said on Friday. #L#
Another Hague indictee, Jovica Stanisic, who headed Serbia's state
security from 1991 to 1998, is suffering from cancer and would have
surrendered to the tribunal if he had not already been arrested on
March 13, a day after the assassination of Prime Minister Zoran
Djindjic, his attorney Nenad Vukasovic told reporters.
He said his client had denied the charges in the Hague indictment.
Following yesterday's interrogation of Simatovic and Stanisic, the
Belgrade county court concluded conditions have been met to
extradite them in line with the law on cooperation with the Hague
tribunal, said Branislav Todic, chief of investigations at the
Belgrade court.
Competent bodies are now in charge of sending the two accused to the
Netherlands.
The U.N. court charges them with participation in the joint
criminal enterprise, the 1991-5 wars, the aim of which was the
persecution of non-Serbs from parts of Croatia and Bosnia and the
annexation of said territories to a new Serb-dominated state.
(hina) ha