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Vladimir Lazarević (born 23 March 1949) is a Serbian colonel general, former chief of the ground forces and commander of the Priština Corps. On 26 February 2009, he, Nebojša Pavković, Nikola Šainović, Sreten Lukić and Dragoljub Ojdanić were convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Kosovo War. Lazarević was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Biography
Lazarević was born on 23 March 1949 in the Serbian village of Grnčar. He graduated from the Yugoslav People's Army's Military Academy in 1972 and went on to become chief of the Priština Corps, a position he held during the Kosovo War.
During the Kosovo War, Lazarević was involved in planning Operation Horseshoe, the Yugoslav plan to expel the Albanian population from Kosovo which is now considered an act of ethnic cleansing. The rounding up and deportation of the Kosovo Albanians was carried out largely by troops under Lazarević's command. Lazarević was also responsible for the shelling of ethnic Albanian villages, displacing hundreds more Albanians.
After the withdrawal from Kosovo, Lazarević continued to be a staunch supporter of President Slobodan Milošević. He was awarded the Order of Bravery and the Order of the War Flag for his part in the Kosovo War. Lazarević was promoted to chief of the ground forces in April 2002 by Milošević's successor Vojislav Koštunica.
On 2 October 2003, Lazarević was formally indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia on four counts of crimes against humanity and one count of war crimes. After fifteen months of legal disputes, Lazarević surrendered to the ICTY on 3 February 2005 at the advice of President Koštunica. He was charged alongside five other defendants (one of whom, Milan Milutinovic, was later acquitted) with having unlawfully deported and forcibly transferred Kosovo Albanians, and with the murders of Kosovar and Albanian civilians. On 26 February 2009, Lazarević was convicted of organizing the deportations and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He was paroled on 3 December 2015 after serving two-thirds of his sentence.