Kosovo War-Era Yugoslav Army General Dies in Russia

Bozidar Delic, a retired Yugoslav Army general and Kosovo war veteran who this month became one of seven vice-presidents of the Serbian parliament, died on Tuesday, Serbian media reported.

Beta news agency reported that Delic died in Moscow, where he went for medical treatment.

The New Democratic Party of Serbia, the leading party in the NADA coalition, which nominated Delic for the parliamentary role, told Danas newspaper that he died after a long and difficult illness. The exact nature of the illness was not specified.

During the Kosovo war in 1999, he was commander of the Yugoslav Army's 549th Motorised Brigade, which has been accused of involvement in war crimes.

This year on August 3 he was elected as one of the parliamentary vice-presidents with 197 votes out of 250, including votes from ruling and opposition parties.

On August 16, a local NGO from the Kosovo town of Gjakove/Djakovica handed three lawsuits to Kosovo's Special Prosecution accusing Delic of war crimes.

A representative of the War Crimes in Gjakove NGO, Shkendije Hoda, told media that it had collected evidence about crimes "which Delic is suspected of committing against Albanian civilians" in the town in 1999.

The Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Centre NGO published a file in 2013 containing the most comprehensive documentation so far of the eight military offensives involving the 549th Motorised Brigade in Kosovo villages in March and April 1999, which resulted in a total of 885 deaths.

In an attack on the villages of Meja and Korenica on April 27, 1999, troops, police and paramilitaries, including soldiers of the 549th Brigade, killed at least 377 civilians, 36 of whom were under 18 years old.

The Serbian war crimes...