"This is a grotesque ruling and situation. The (ICTY's) history means that Zagreb was involved in the crimes in Bosnia and Belgrade wasn't," Misetic told Hina.
He said the Stanisic-Simatovic trial was the last trial which established if the former Serbian government was involved in the crimes in Bosnia.
"This is really grotesque of the Hague tribunal. I was speechless that after 20 years the Hague tribunal arrived at this conclusion," said Misetic, who defended Croatian general Ante Gotovina before the UN court.
The editor in chief of Sarajevo's Slobodna Bosna weekly, Senad Avdic, told Hina today's acquittal was a defeat of the ICTY's prosecution.
"This is yet another case of the impossibility to prove the roles of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic in the formation of paramilitary units which committed the worst crimes in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, even in Kosovo, which can be a matter of politics or complete amateurism on the prosecution's part," said Avdic.
He said the wars in Croatia and Bosnia were started with the SDB's participation and that this fact was proven in the ICTY's files.
"The SDB was the heart of evil in the former Yugoslav republics," said Avdic.
The wartime head of Bosnia's State Security Service, Munir Alibabic, who documented the Serbian services' crimes, told Hina that today's acquittal was "astounding... I have no further comment."
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) today acquitted Stanisic and Simatovic pending appeal. They were accused of war crimes in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina committed by Serb paramilitary units.
The trial chamber ordered that they be immediately released from the Scheveningen detention centre.
In their closing arguments in January, the prosecution asked that Stanisic and Simatovic be sentenced to life imprisonment.
The ICTY found by majority vote that Stanisic and Simatovic had no intention to contribute to an alleged joint criminal enterprise aimed at removing the majority of non-Serbs from large parts of Croatia and Bosnia between 1991 and 1995.
Under the indictment, apart from Stanisic and Simatovic, the enterprise comprised former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and former wartime Bosnian and Croatian Serb leaders Ratko Mladic, Radovan Karadzic, Biljana Plavsic, Milan Martic, Goran Hadzic and Milan Babic, Serbian Radicals leader Vojislav Seselj, and militia commander Zeljko Raznatovic aka Arkan.