Nikola Šainović
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Nikola Šainović (born 7 December 1948) is a Serbian politician and former Deputy Prime Minister of FR Yugoslavia. A close associate of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević, Šainović was sentenced to 22 years in prison in 2009 after being convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Kosovo War.
Biography edit
Šainović was born in the Serbian village of Bor on 7 December 1948. He entered politics by joining the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. After the League of Communists won the 1992 election with the support of the Serbian Radical Party, Šainović was appointed Deputy Prime Minister of FR Yugoslavia under President Milošević and Prime Minister Radoje Kontić.
During the Kosovo War, Šainović oversaw the implementation of Operation Horseshoe, an act of ethnic cleansing consisting of attempts to drive out the Albanian population of Kosovo through acts of murder and forcible deportation. According to his ICTY indictment, Šainović was responsible for the deportations of approximately 800, 000 Kosovo Albanian civilians between January and June 1999.
In May 1999, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) issued warrants for the arrest of Milošević, Šainović, Defence Minister Dragoljub Ojdanić and Interior Minister Vlajko Stojiljković as the leaders of a joint criminal enterprise during the Kosovo war. Šainović surrendered to the ICTY on 2 May 2003 and was charged with four counts of war crimes and and one count of crimes against humanity. On 26 February 2009, Šainović, Dragoljub Ojdanić, Vladimir Lazarević, Nebojša Pavković and Sreten Lukić were convicted. Šainović was sentenced to 22 years in prison. He was granted compassionate release in 2015 and is now a member of the Socialist Party of Serbia.