Former UK ambassador to Serbia, Sir Ivor Roberts, has confirmed before The Hague international court that former head of the National Security Service (SDB) of Serbia, Jovica Stanisic, was a "secret agent of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)" of the United States.
At the trial of Stanisic and SDB Serbia operative Frank Simatovic-Frenki, charged with crimes against non-Serbs in Croatia and BiH, Ambassador Roberts, as a witness for Stanisic's defense, suggested that reliable information was that Stanisic was a "CIA undercover agent" published in 2016 in his book "Conversations with Milosevic".
Asked by prosecutor Douglas Stringer about the origin and merits of that information, Roberts replied that the British government had "not allowed him to talk about these matters" and had been "recently" warned that he had to respect the law on official secrecy.
Recalling that official London had approved the contents of the ambassador's book before it was published, prosecutor Stringer asked if that "information was reliable", to which the witness replied: "You judge."
"Are you saying that we should not rely on this information?" The prosecutor insisted. "I would certainly rely on everything in the book," said Roberts, who served in Belgrade from 1994 to 1997.
Asked "what the British government knew about Stanisic", the witness said he "did not want to go into it", as the condition for his testimony was not to be asked about "intelligence gathering".
"Stanisic knew where the bodies were buried" Roberts, however, said Stanisic was a "terrifying secret police chief" of then Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.
He stressed that "if forced, he could find Milosevic extremely unpleasant things", but declined to elaborate, referring to the instructions of the Forin office.
As evidence of Stanisic's power and closeness to Milosevic, Roberts recounted what the Serbian president told him in 1995 during the Bosnian Serb crisis by taking Unprofor hostage.
"Milosevic told me: 'Stanisic (whom he sent to Republika Srpska) will tell Radovan Karadzic that I will kill him if he does not release the hostages. Karadzic knows I can do it,'" the British diplomat testified.
Since late 1993, when Republika Srpska's leadership, despite Serbia's insistence, refused to accept the Vance-Owen peace plan, Milosevic, according to Roberts, considered Karadzic "his Frankenstein" who had regained control.
"One way or another, Milosevic has been trying to remove Karadzic since 1994."
Asked by the prosecutor whether Stanisic helped Milosevic create Serbian "states in Croatia and BiH," the witness said he "assumed" that it was.
Roberts said he received information from "intelligence sources" that Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan "worked for the Serbian secret police". According to the indictment, Arkan's paramilitary, as a unit of SDB Serbia, committed many crimes in Croatia and BiH.
"Milosevic acted as a pyroman until 1993 and then as a fireman" The ambassador accepted, as "probably correct", Prosecutor Stringer's suggestion that in 1991-92 Milosevic "accepted ethnic cleansing" committed by Serb forces in Croatia and BiH.
According to Roberts, Milosevic did not do so out of "nationalist" motives, but used Serbian nationalism "cynically" as a means of consolidating his power over Serbs, not only in Serbia but also outside it.
Milosevic regularly blamed "a small number of paramilitaries" for war crimes, but did not answer Roberts' question "who equipped, trained and sent them to the battlefield."
"Milosevic was certainly involved in facilitating all of this," the witness said, noting that Arkan's activities in 1994 began to raise "serious Milosevic's concerns."
Roberts confirmed that by 1993, Milosevic was acting as a "pyroman" in Croatia and BiH, sparking a fire of conflict and then as a "firefighter" who supported international efforts to end the war.
The British diplomat called Milosevic "the chief engineer of the breakup of Yugoslavia", sparking the flames of nationalism in Slovenia, Croatia and BiH, as well as the creation of the Kosovo Liberation Army.
Roberts will continue his testimony tomorrow.
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