BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Nebojsa Pavkovic, a former Serb-led Yugoslav army chief who was convicted by a U.N. court of war crimes during the war in Kosovo, has died, Serbian officials and media said Monday. He was 79.
Pavkovic died in Belgrade, Serbia’s capital, less than a month after he was released from a prison in Finland where he had been serving a 22-year jail sentence for the atrocities against ethnic Albanians in the 1998-99 conflict.
Pavkovic commanded the Serb-led Yugoslav army troops in Kosovo during a Serbian crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanian forces who launched a rebellion to gain independence for the territory which was part of Serbia at the time.
Serbian security forces were accused of systematic crimes against civilians that included expulsions, torture, detentions a