“THE late President Milosevic’s secret police chief and organiser of Serb death squads during the genocidal ethnic cleansing of disintegrating Yugoslavia was the United States’ top CIA agent in Belgrade, according to the independent Belgrade Radio B92.”
“The claim that from 1992 until the end of the decade, Jovica Stanisic, head of Serbia’s murderous DB Secret Police, was regularly informing his CIA handlers of the thinking in Milosevic’s inner circle has shocked the region.”
“Stanisic is said to have loyally served his two masters for eight years. He is facing war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.”
“In the terrifying years of Yugoslavia’s internecine wars, he acted as the willing “muscle” behind Milosevic’s genocidal campaigns in Croatia, Kosovo and Bosnia, including Sebrenica.”
“Dermot Groome, The Hague’s chief prosecutor, has specifically accused him of sending in the Serb Scorpion and Red Beret death squads into the states seeking independence from Belgrade. Stanisic has pleaded not guilty.”
“Like in a Cold War spy thriller, Serbia’s secret police chief met his CIA handlers in safe houses, parks and boats on the river Sava to betray his master’s action plans. He provided, it is claimed, information on the whereabouts of Nato hostages, aided CIA operatives in their search for Muslim mass graves and helped the US set up secret bases in Bosnia to monitor the implementation of the 1995 Dayton peace accord.”
“In an unusual move, the CIA has submitted classified documents to the court that confirm Stanisic’s “undercover operative role in helping to bring peace to the region and aiding the agency’s work. He helped defuse some of the most explosive actions of the Bosnian war.””
“In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, William Lofgren, his original CIA recruiter and handler, now retired, said: “Stanisic provided valuable information from Milosevic’s inner circle. But he never took money from the CIA, worked with the agency on operations or took steps that he would have considered a blatant betrayal of his boss.””
“Thus the judges at The Hague are having to judge a man who allegedly sent the Scorpion death squads to Srebrenica to “deal” with men and boys fleeing the UN-protected Muslim enclave, while working with the CIA trying to end Milosevic’s ethnic wars.”
“Greg Miller of the Los Angeles Times, writing about the links between the CIA and the Serb secret police chief, is quoted as saying:”
“”People in Belgrade who have been following the career of Jovica Stanisic would say that this was a guy who was an expert in his field; he was a highly-trained and highly-effective spy. His motivation may have been that he wanted to know what the United States was up to.”
“”He did not believe that Milosevic was taking the country in the right direction – so he wanted to influence events. He saw himself as an important guy who could pull strings behind the scenes to make things happen in Belgrade.””
“Stanisic apparently did so on his own terms, while trying to remain a loyal Serb. He did not succeed.”
Read more: Serbian death squad leader ‘was top C.I.A. agent’
2021-week34
