Dragoljub Ojdanić

Dragoljub Ojdanić (Serbian Cyrillic: Драгољуб Ојданић) (born June 1, 1941 in Ravni near Užice, Kingdom of Yugoslavia) was former Chief of the General Staff and Defence minister of Yugoslavia. He was convicted of deportation and forcible transfers by the ICTY.

In 1958 he studied at the Yugoslav military academy and graduated in 1964. He was deputy commander of 37 korpus, with command in Užice. He was promoted to Major General on 20 April 1992 and he became the commander of Užice korpus. Under his command Užice korpus was deployed in military operations in eastern Bosnia during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

He served as Chief of the General Staff First Army of FRY in 1993 and 1994. Between 1994-1996 he was commander of the First Army. In 1996 he became deputy commander Chief of the General Staff. In 1998 Slobodan Milošević placed Ojdanić as a Chief of the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army. He was also a Chief of General Staff during NATO's Operation Allied Force.

In February 2000 after the death of defence minister Pavle Bulatović, he was made Defence minister of Yugoslavia and promoted to General of the Army.

On 25 April 2002, Ojdanić was transferred by the Yugoslav government to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. Ojdanić was allowed to attend Milošević's funeral after his death on 11 March 2006. On 26 February 2009, the ICTY sentenced Ojdanić to 15 years in prison, following a conviction for deportation and forcible transfers. On May 27, 2009, Ojdanic’s case was appealed. Ojdanic’s co-counsel on appeal is Peter Robinson of the United States.

In January 2013, he publicly admitted his participation in war crimes against Kosovo Albanians and withdrew the appeal against his conviction.