The Serbian army chief, Ljubisa Dikovic has filed a lawsuit against the director of the Humanitarian Law Centre in Serbia, Natasa Kandic, after she accused him of being responsible for war crimes committed in Kosovo in 1999.
The Humanitarian Law Centre, in a report published in January, blamed Dikovic for a number of war crimes committed in Kosovo in 1999 when he was the commander of the Motorised Brigade of the Yugoslav Army.
The report was based on exhibits from the Hague Tribunal, public documents of the Yugoslav Army, JNA, the NGO's documentation, and depositions from witnesses.
The Humanitarian Law Centre maintained that an officer with such a stained record should not be at the helm of the Serbian Army, “as he clearly lacks the professional and ethical potential to help restore trust in the Serbian Army regionally and internationally”.
The Serbian Ministry of Defence and General Dikovic have denounced the report as a vicious attempt to smear the Army’s reputation, while Serbia’s War Crimes Prosecution Office has dismissed the evidence against Dikovic as groundless.
Lieutenant General Ljubisa Dikovic was appointed Head of the Army of the Republic of Serbia on December 12 last year by a decree of Serbian President Boris Tadic.
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