Today the Prosecution will open the first full retrial in the history of international criminal law.

In 2013, Jovića Stanišić and Franko Simatović were acquitted on all counts in the indictment in their trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia. In 2015, the Appeals Chamber reversed their acquittals having found errors of law which, they said, impugned the trial judgment. Having considered the appropriate remedy, they took the exceptional step of remitting the case to the Trial Chamber of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, ordering a retrial “on all counts in the indictment”.

Accordingly, Mr. Stanišić and Mr. Simatović will today face, for a second time, an opening statement in which the Prosecution will allege crimes committed across the territories of Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina from 1991 to 1995, in support of a five count indictment, and the ensuing trial.

At the centre of the case is an alleged joint criminal enterprise, involving Karadžić, Milošević, Mladić and other senior officials from Serbian, Bosnian Serb and Croatian Serb institutions.

Joe Holmes, led by Wayne Jordash QC, is assigned to the Defence of Mr. Stanišić. Mr. Stanišić was head of Serbian State Security during the Balkans conflict and is alleged to have been within Slobodan Milošević’s inner circle.

The opening statement can be followed on the tribunal’s website: http://www.unmict.org/en

For further background information, click the following link:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/retrial-starting-serbs-charged-war-crimes-48000852

Image source: Martijn Beekman/www.nytimes.com/