Dragoljub Ojdanić
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Dragoljub Ojdanić (1 June 1941 - 6 September 2020) was a Serbian general who served as Chief of Staff of the Yugoslav Armed Forces and Yugoslavian Minister of Defence. On 26 February 2009, he, Vladimir Lazarević, Nebojša Pavković, Nikola Šainović and Sreten Lukić were convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Kosovo War. Ojdanić was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Biography edit
Ojdanić was born on 1 June 1941 in Užice, Serbia. He graduated from the Yugoslav Military Academy in 1964 and went on to command the Užice Corps during the Bosnian War. He served as Chief of Staff of the First Army of Yugoslavia from 1993 - 1994, commander of the First Army from 1994 - 1996 and Deputy Chief of Staff of the Yugoslav military from 1996 - 1998.
With the outbreak of the Kosovo War in 1998, President Slobodan Milošević appointed Ojdanić as Chief of Staff of the Yugoslav Army. This gave Ojdanić overall responsibility for Operation Horseshoe, an act of ethnic cleansing in which Kosovar Albanians were rounded up by the invading Yugoslav troops and deported from Kosovo, and for the concurrent campaign of terror by the military intended to drive Kosovar Albanians to flee their homes. Ojdanić continued to serve as Chief of Staff during the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia which forced Yugoslavia to withdraw. He was later promoted to Defence Minister in February 2000.
On 25 April 2002, Ojdanić was formally indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was arrested and extradited to The Hague to face trial alongside five other defendants, one of whom was later acquitted. He was convicted of having overseen and been aware of the deportation of Kosovar Albanians and the campaign of murder, rape and maltreatment in the Kosovo region and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He appealed his conviction in May 2009, but later withdrew his appeal and admitted guilt. He was paroled in August 2013 and lived in Serbia until his death in 2020.