Sreten Lukic

Army General Sreten Lukic was born on 28 March 1955 in the municipality of Visegrad in present day Bosnia-Herzegovina. He took up a career in the Yugoslav, later Serb, police force. On 1 June 1998, he was appointed to the position of Chief of Staff of the Serb Interior Ministry in charge of Kosovo-Metojiha (“Headquarters of MUP”). On 16 June the MUP was given increased responsibilities with General Sreten Lukic still retaining his position at its head. He held this position during the state of war, which had been declared on 24 March 1999.From July 1999 onwards, he held positions as Deputy Head of the RJB and Head of Border Administration of the Border Police in the MUP in Belgrade.

The original indictment alleged that Sreten Lukic as well as Vladimir Lazarevic, Vlastimir Djordjevic and Nebojsa Pavkovic (see “related cases”), planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted in preparing certain crimes. According to the indictment Lukic was part of a joint criminal enterprise which had the aim, in addition to other objectives, to expel a major part of the Kosovo Albanian civilians from the province in which they were living in order to maintain this province under Serb control. This joint criminal enterprise reportedly was in existence by October 1998 and continued until 20 June 1999.

According to the indictment, armed forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and of Serbia, in a deliberate and widespread or systematic manner, forcibly expelled and internally displaced hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanians from their homes across the entire province of Kosovo. In order to facilitate these expulsions and deportations, forces of the FRY and Serbia were said to have deliberately created a climate of fear and oppression by the use of force or by threatening to do so or by engaging in violent acts. Throughout Kosovo, according to the indictment, FRY and Serbian forces were alleged to have undertaken a widespread or systematic campaign of destruction of property belonging to Kosovo Albanian civilians. These coordinated actions made the towns, villages and entire regions uninhabitable for the Kosovo Albanians. Numerous Kosovo Albanians who had not been directly expelled by force from their community were said to have fled due to the climate of terror which had been created in the region by the widespread and systematic campaign of physical aggression, harassment, sexual violence, illegal arrest, murder, bombing and pillaging.

In his position as Chief of Staff of the MUP in charge of Kosovo from 1 June 1998, Sreten Lukic planned, organised, oriented, coordinated and controlled the activities of the MUP in Kosovo, and was responsible for ensuring the protection and security of people and their belongings, for the prevention and investigation of crimes, for arresting the perpetrators and for ensuring the maintenance of public order. According to the indictment, Sreten Lukic, being in a position of hierarchical superior within the MUP, should have seen to it that the units of the MUP in Kosovo, act in conformity with the decisions taken by the other members of the joint criminal enterprise and the laws and regulations of the Federation and of the Republic. His subordinates included, without being limited to the following, members of the MUP, Territorial Army units, civil defence units and other army groups.

Sreten Lukic was arrested and transferred to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on 4 April 2005.