'Death-Squad' Serb Was CIA Spook

Agency submits classified document to international court in Stanisic's defense
By Mary Papenfuss,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 1, 2009 8:00 AM CST
'Death-Squad' Serb Was CIA Spook
International war crimes probers examine a mass grave in Srebrenica in 1996. Now the CIA has revealed that an ex-intelligence chief linked to Serbian death squads worked closely with the agency.   (AP Photo/Staton R. Winter, File)

A Serbian leader facing trial for organizing "ethic cleansing" death squads was a key CIA aide, reports the Los Angeles Times. Jovica Stanisic, head of intelligence for brutal Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, secretly fed information to CIA agents desperate for dirt on factions in the former Yugoslavia. While Stanisic was the CIA's key man in Belgrade, he was also establishing a network of genocidal death squads, according to the UN's International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

In a highly unusual move, the CIA has submitted a classified document to the tribunal listing Stanisic's beneficial contributions. "This allegedly evil person did a whole lot of good," said retired CIA agent William Lofgren, who does not deny the death-squad charges against Stanisic. "Setting the indictment aside, there are things this man did that helped bring hostilities to an end." (More international war crimes tribunal stories.)

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