[JURIST] The Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) [advocacy website], a Serbian human rights group, alleged [press release, in Serbian] on Tuesday that Serbian General Ljubisa Dikovic [official profile, in Serbian] committed war crimes [JURIST news archive] in 1998 and 1999 during the war in Kosovo [JURIST news archive]. The HLC pointed to evidence uncovered during the trial of former Serbian president Milan Milutinovic by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) [official website; JURIST news archive]. They noted that Dikovic was in command of the 37th Motorized Brigade, in whose zone of control the ICTY found a “number of heavy and massive war crimes committed.” The HLC alleged that, although Dikovic had a responsibility to prevent the war crimes, he did not act.

The ICTY is currently preparing for the trial of former Serbian general and alleged war criminal Ratko Mladic [ICTY backgrounder, PDF; JURIST news archive]. The trial is set to begin in March [JURIST report]. The ICTY had previously tried [JURIST news archive] former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic [JURIST news archive], but ended that trial after his death [JURIST report] in custody in 2006.