WHO ARE THE SKORPIONS: SERBIAN VOLUNTEERS OR NATO AGENTS?
www.slobodan-milosevic.org - June 5, 2005

Written by: Andy Wilcoxson

A videotape depicting the execution of prisoners of war was played at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic last Wednesday. The prosecution claims the victims were Muslims from Srebrenica, and the executioners were a unit of the Serbian Interior Ministry (MUP) known as the Skorpions.

I have been getting a lot of e-mail asking me about this Skorpion group. The short answer is that the Skorpions were not a unit of the MUP of Serbia in 1995 when the videotape was said to have been filmed.

Natasa Kandic, the director of the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Center, told the June 3rd edition of Belgrade's Politika newspaper that she is the one who provided the ICTY prosecution with a copy of the videotape.

The Skorpions were a volunteer unit from in Djeletovci in Eastern Slavonia. Their leader was a man named Slobodan Medic aka “Boca.”  The Skorpions were established on the initiative of Milan Milanovic, the Deputy Defense Minister of the Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK). Milanovic, who testified as a prosecution witness at the Milosevic trial on October 14, 2003, claims that in May of 1992 he proposed to the director of the Krajina Petroleum Industries oil company that Medic should establish a security force to guard the Djeletovci oil fields, and that was how the Skorpions were established.

The Skorpions also participated in other operations. The Skorpions were essentially a mercenary group. They went to the Bihac area, and while they were there they were subordinated to the command of the Army of the Republic of Serbian Krajina, according to Milanovic's testimony.

Milanovic testified that the Skorpions went to Trnovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1994. While they were there, he said, they were subordinated to the MUP of Republika Srpska.

On May 14, 1996 the Skorpions were forced to vacate their base at Djeletovci by UNTAES forces. According to statements given by Slobodan Medic the Skorpions were disbanded at that point.

By all accounts, the Skorpions were inactive until NATO attacked Yugoslavia in 1999. When NATO began its attack a mobilization order was issued by the Yugoslav Government. The government sought volunteers to help with the war effort, and this was when the Skorpions reconstituted themselves and got involved with the Serbian Interior Ministry – four years after Srebrenica.

According to Milanovic's testimony, when NATO attacked Yugoslavia, the Chief of the Public Security Department (RJB) Gen. Vlastimir Djordjevic, called him asking for any volunteers he could rally to help in Kosovo.

Milanovic says that Slobodan Medic also called to ask him if he could arrange for the Skorpions to go to Kosovo as volunteers. Medic specifically asked that the Skorpions to go as part of the Serbian MUP, rather than the Yugoslav Army (VJ).

Milanovic testified that he was the one who proposed Medic and the Skorpions to Gen. Djordjevic. The Skorpions went to Kosovo right after the bombing began.

According to the February 14, 2003 testimony of prosecution witness Gen. Aleksandar Vasiljevic, who served as the former head of military security in the Yugoslav Army, the Skorpions were affiliated in some way with the SAJ (anti-terrorist unit of the MUP). Slobodan Medic has also given statements indicating that the Skorpions were used as a reserve unit of the SAJ. For its part, the SAJ has denied that it used the Skorpions as a reserve unit, or that it even had a reserve unit.

Unfortunately, some members of the Skorpions committed serious crimes against Albanian civilians in Kosovo. In May of 1999 the Serbian authorities launched an investigation against two members of the Skorpions, Dejan Demirovic and Sasa Cvjetan, on the suspicion that they had massacred 19 Albanian women and children in the village of Podujevo. The investigation was led by Dusko Klikovac, a homicide detective at the Nis SUP. Klikovac brought Demirovic and Cvjetan in for questioning, but he did not have enough evidence to hold them.

At that point Gen. Djordjevic ordered Medic and the Skorpions out of Kosovo, but Slobodan Medic is rumored to have returned to Kosovo none the less.

The district court in Prokuplje filed formal criminal charges against Demirovic and Cvjetan in 2002 when Goran Stoparic, a former member of the Skorpions, agreed to testify that he had witnessed the men carry-out the killings.

On March 17, 2004 Sasa Cvjetan was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Dejan Demirovic fled the country and is currently living in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. The Canadian government is refusing to honor the Serbian Government’s requests for his extradition.

Demirovic is not a Canadian citizen, and the Canadian government says he entered Canada illegally, which makes it all the more strange that they don't extradite him to Serbia to stand trial.

According to the testimony of protected witness B-071, who testified against Milosevic on April 2, 2003, the Skorpions wore camouflage NATO uniforms when he saw them in Bosnia during the war.

Where did the Skorpions get their NATO uniforms, and why is the Canadian government giving Demirovic safe haven? These are sticky questions. Could it be that the Skorpions were a fifth column mercenary group who were actually working for NATO to generate evidence of Serbian crimes in Bosnia and Kosovo? Of course that is idle speculation on my part, but it would explain some things.

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