Franko Simatovic granted temporary release, arriving in Serbia

Photo montage: Tanjug/AP

The former head of the State Security Service (DB), Franko Simatovic, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for war crimes in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina by the tribunal in The Hague, has been granted temorary release and is arriving in Serbia, Novosti has learned.

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The reason for this decision of the court is that he cannot receive the therapy he needs in prison conditions.

Simatovic was arrested together with a former head of the DB, Jovica Stanisic, in 2003, when the indictment was filed. After the first trial in 2013, both were acquitted, but the prosecution appealed.

The verdict was overturned in 2015 and a retrial was ordered. The second trial began in 2017, and in June 2021 they were found guilty of crimes committed in Bosanski Samac and sentenced to 12 years in prison each.

Simatovic and Stanisic, as well as the prosecution, appealed against this verdict, so in May of this year the Appeals Chamber handed down the final verdict of 15 years for crimes committed in six cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina and one on Daljska Planina in Croatia, in the early 1990s.

In the indictment, Stanisic and Simatovic were charged with crimes against humanity on four counts: persecution, murder, deportation and inhuman acts, and one count of violations of laws or customs of war - murder.

Simatovic and Stanisic were temporarily released during the trial.

Simatovic has spent more than eight years in prison, and Stanisic more than seven.

(Telegraf.rs)