Serbia hails war crimes acquittal of ex-intelligence chief

Serbia hailed the UN war crimes tribunal's decision Thursday to acquit Serb ex-intelligence chief Jovica Stanisic and his deputy of running Bosnian death squads during the 1992-1995 war. "Serbia has always advocated fair trials to all those accused before the tribunal in The Hague as the only way to establish the truth about the war and make conditions for reconciliation, peace and stability in the region," Prime Minister Ivica Dacic told AFP. "Such a verdict is of great importance for Serbia," Dacic added shortly after the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) announced the acquittal. In 1990s Dacic was spokesman of late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, who appointed Stanisic as intelligence chief. Stanisic and his key aide Franko Simatovic each faced five counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for their roles in the wars that followed the break-up of Yugoslavia in 1991, which left more than 100,000 people dead and millions of others displaced. In Sarajevo, Munira Subasic, president of an association of families of Bosnian war victims, said the acquittal was "unacceptable." "This is unbelievable and unacceptable! This is a political verdict. I am shocked," Subasic told AFP. "ICTY did not fulfil its mission. Unfortunately, it encourages criminals to commit crimes in the future," said Subasic, head of the Mothers of Srebrenica association, a group of women whose male family members were killed in the July 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serbs. The main Bosnian Muslim Party of Democratic Action (SDA) said the verdict only proved "that the policy of The Hague tribunal is changed in order to abolish Serbia from responsibility for aggression and wartime suffering in Bosnia and Croatia." "Instead of truth and justice, the verdict brings untruth and injustice," the SDA said in a statement.