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Amsterdam: Two former Serbian security officers were to go on trial today charged with directing murder and ethnic cleansing by Serb paramilitary gangs in Bosnia and Croatia, where hundreds of non-Serbs were executed and thousands were expelled from their villages.
Jovica Stanisic, once Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic's closest security officer, and his deputy Franko Simatovic, are accused of creating, training and directing paramilitary armies like Arkan's Tigers and Martic's Police that became notorious during Yugoslavia's violent disintegration from 1991 to 1995.
Their trial before the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague had been scheduled to open last week but was postponed at the prosecutor's request.
Both men have pleaded innocent to five counts of murder, persecution, forced deportations and inhuman acts. They face maximum life sentences if convicted.
Stanisic and Simatovic, both 57, were mentioned several times during the Milosevic trial that began in 2002 and ended two years ago when the former Serb leader died of a heart attack in his jail cell.
Stanisic was head of the State Security Services from 1991 until 1998. Simatovic commanded the secret service's Unit for Special Operations.
Their indictment lists village after village raided where residents were rounded up, ethnic Serbs released and the rest killed.
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