"He emerged out of the darkness with bodyguards" and spent much of the evening talking about his boss, Smith said. "He intensely disliked Milosevic. He went off on how awful Milosevic was -- dishonest and crooked."
Asked whether Stanisic was capable of committing war crimes, Smith replied, "I think he would do as little bad as he could."
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday, March 11, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 4 National Desk 2 inches; 75 words Type of Material: Correction
War crimes: An article March 1 in Section A about Serbian war crimes defendant Jovica Stanisic reported that prosecutor Dermot Groome said that Stanisic's actions to help the CIA and counter Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic underscored his power. Groome was not commenting on the relationship between Stanisic and the CIA, but on Stanisic's efforts to save lives during the war. Also, the article said that Georgetown is in Virginia. It is a Washington, D.C., neighborhood.
At the time, CIA Director John M. Deutch was trying to clean up the agency's image by cracking down on contacts with human rights violators. Years later, the "Deutch rules" were cited as a reason the agency hadn't done better penetrating groups such as Al Qaeda.
But Deutch had no problems with Stanisic. He invited the Serbian to CIA headquarters in 1996, and an itinerary of the visit indicates that Stanisic got a warm welcome.
The Serbian spy chief was taken to hear jazz at the Blues Alley club in Georgetown, Va., and driven to Maryland's eastern shore for a bird hunt. Deutch even presented Stanisic with a 1937 Parker shotgun, a classic weapon admired by collectors.
Deutch, now a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, declined to comment.
Stanisic's expanding ties to the CIA became a source of friction with Milosevic, who worried that his top spy was plotting against him. In 1998, Stanisic was fired.
The ensuing years were chaotic. After a new campaign of violence against Kosovo, Milosevic was forced from office in 2000, arrested the next year and taken to The Hague, where he went on trial for war crimes and died of a heart attack in 2006. A series of political assassinations occurred amid suspicion that Stanisic was somehow still pulling the strings.
When Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic -- who had sent Milosevic to The Hague -- was assassinated in 2003, Stanisic was arrested and detained for three months. Then, without explanation, he too was sent to The Hague.
For the last five years, Stanisic has gone back and forth between Belgrade and the detention center in the Netherlands. His trial was postponed last year to allow him to return to Belgrade for treatment of an acute intestinal disorder that according to court records had caused substantial blood loss. If Stanisic's health stabilizes, his trial is expected to resume this year.
Stanisic is still seen in Belgrade from time to time, occasionally greeted by well-wishers. But much of his life has crumbled. He is divorced from his wife, estranged from his children and spends alternating weeks in the hospital.
"The last time I saw him, he was connected to tubes," said Dragicevic, Stanisic's longtime deputy.
Sometimes Stanisic is in good spirits and talks of prevailing in his case. But most of the time, Dragicevic said, "he looks like a person who has already surrendered."
"The person who was in charge of so many things, the person who was so very important and well-known, is now a very lonely one."
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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
Jovica Stanisic
A chronology of events in the case of the Serbian spy chief
Born: July 30, 1950
April 1991: Stanisic and others in Serbian intelligence allegedly oversee establishment of "special units," paramilitary groups later accused of atrocities against Bosnians and Croats.
1991: Special units allegedly "committed crimes in and attacked and took control of towns and villages" in Serb autonomous regions in Croatia.
1992: First meeting with CIA; begins clandestine cooperation with agency; turns over blueprints of bunkers built by Serb companies in Iraq.
March 1992 to 1995: Special units allegedly "committed crimes in and attacked and took control of towns and villages in the municipalities of Bijeljina, Bosanski Samac, Doboj, Sanski Most, Zvornik." Simultaneously, Stanisic cooperates with CIA, providing information on Milosevic regime and conveying communications from the U.S. to his boss.
May-June 1995: Stanisic negotiates release of 388 U.N. hostages being held by Serb Republic in Bosnia.
June-July 1995: Stanisic orders Scorpions to Serb-controlled territory near Sarajevo. Scorpions capture Muslim men and boys fleeing Srebrenica. Scorpions take six male refugees into woods and execute them, videotaping the killings.
November 1995: Attends Dayton peace conference in the United States with Milosevic.
December 1995: Aids CIA in setting up clandestine bases in Bosnia to monitor cease-fire.
February 1996: Visits CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. Meets with Director John Deutch, deputy George Tenet.
July 1996: Stanisic is sent to Pale to get Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic to quit his position and withdraw from politics.
October 1998: Amid suspicions that he has become too close to the CIA, Stanisic is fired by Milosevic.
March-June 2003: Stanisic is arrested in Belgrade and transferred to The Hague.
2004: U.S. government submits CIA document to The Hague listing actions taken by Stanisic to help the West and defuse crisis in Balkans.
May-June 2008: Trial is adjourned; Stanisic is granted provisional release to seek medical treatment in Serbia.
Sources: International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia case information sheet; CIA sources; account Stanisic wrote in prison in October 2003
