Milan Lukić

Milan Lukić (Милан Лукић; born 6 September 1967) is a Bosnian Serb war criminal who led the White Eagles paramilitary group during the Bosnian War.

According to the 1991 census before the Bosnian war the municipality had a population of 21,199: 62.8% of Bosniak ethnicity, 32.8% Serb and 4.4% classified as others.

The town was strategically important during the conflict.

The Drina valley's proximity to the Serbian border made it a key element in Serbian plans to establish the client state of Republika Srpska.

A hydroelectric dam near to the town provided electricity and also controlled the level of the Drina River, preventing flooding in areas downstream.

Višegrad is also situated on the main road connecting Belgrade and Užice in Serbia with Goražde and Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a vital link for the Užice Corps of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) with its base camp in Uzamnica as well as other strategic locations implicated in the conflict.

In a 1992 interview with the Belgrade magazine Duga, in which he confessed to some of his crimes, Lukić said, "I don't have a guilty conscience over any of them."

Višegrad is one of several towns along the Drina River in close proximity to the Serbian border (then Yugoslavia).

On 6 April 1992, in a pattern repeated elsewhere in the initial stages of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia, JNA units began an artillery bombardment of the town, in particular Bosniak neighbourhoods and nearby Bosniak villages.

A group of Bosniak men took several local Serbs hostage and seized control of the hydroelectric dam, threatening to blow it up.

One of the men released water from the dam causing flooding to some houses and streets.

Six days later, JNA commandos seized the dam.

The next day the Užice Corps of the JNA from Užice took control of Višegrad, positioning tanks and heavy artillery around the town.

The population that had fled the town during the crisis returned and the climate in the town remained relatively calm and stable during the later part of April and the first two weeks of May.

On 19 May 1992 the JNA Užice Corps officially withdrew from the town and local Serb leaders established the Serbian Municipality of Višegrad, taking control of all municipal government offices.

Soon after, local Serbs, police and paramilitaries began one of the most notorious campaigns of ethnic cleansing in the conflict, designed to permanently rid the town of its Bosniak population.

Serb forces attacked and destroyed a number of Bosniak villages.

A large number of Bosniak civilians in the town of Višegrad were killed.

The Drina River was used to dump many of the bodies of the Bosniak men, women and children killed around the town and on the historic Turkish bridge crossing the Drina.

Serb forces were implicated in the systematic looting and destruction of Bosniak homes and villages.

Both of the town's mosques were completely destroyed.

Many of the Bosniaks who were not immediately killed were detained at various locations in the town, as well as the former JNA military barracks at Uzamnica (5 kilometres outside of Višegrad), the Vilina Vlas Hotel and other detention sites in the area.

Those detained at Uzamnica were subjected to inhumane conditions, including regular beatings, torture by Bosnian Serbs and strenuous forced labour.

Ethnic cleansing was carried out on orders from the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić and the military commander General Ratko Mladić and as elsewhere in Bosnia, persecution and mass murder was overseen by a local Bosnian Serb "Crisis Committee", under the presidency of Branimir Savović.

Milan Lukić returned to Višegrad in 1992 after working abroad for a time before the war in Germany and Switzerland.

Lukić said he returned from Zurich when the fighting began in Visegrad to join a unit organised by his cousin Sredoje, and Niko Vujačić.

Lukić was responsible for organising a group of local paramilitaries referred to variously as the White Eagles, the Avengers or the Wolves, with ties to the Višegrad police and Serb military units.

The group committed numerous crimes in the Višegrad municipality including murder, rape, torture, beatings, looting and destruction of property, and played a prominent role in the ethnic cleansing of the town and surrounding area of its Bosniak inhabitants.

These crimes included two particular crimes of which it was observed by the ICTY Trial Chamber in the summary of its conclusions in the Lukić cousins' trial that "The Pionirska street fire and the Bikavac fire exemplify the worst acts of inhumanity that a person may inflict upon others."

On the morning of 22 October 1992, a bus travelling from Priboj, Sandžak, Serbia to Rudo, Bosnia, was stopped in the Bosnian village of Mioče by four members of the Osvetnici (Avengers) paramilitary unit under the command of Milan Lukić.

The other members of the group were Oliver Krsmanović, Dragutin Dragicević, and Đorđe Sević.

16 Bosniak passengers from Sjeverin - 15 men and one woman, all Yugoslavian and/or Serbian citizens - were taken off the bus and forced onto a truck.

They were taken to Višegrad, which was under the control of the Bosnian Serb Army, to the Vilina Vlas hotel.

He was found guilty by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in July 2009 of crimes against humanity and violations of war customs committed in the Višegrad municipality of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian war and sentenced to life in prison.

The crimes of which Lukić was convicted include murder, torture, assault, looting, destruction of property and the killing of at least 132 identified men, women and children.

Lukić's cousin, Sredoje Lukić, and a close family friend Mitar Vasiljević were convicted by the ICTY and sentenced to 30 years and 15 years in prison, respectively.

Among the crimes in and around Višegrad for which Lukić and the unit under his command were held responsible were the Pionirska street fire and the Bikavac fire which, it was observed by the ICTY Trial Chamber, exemplified the worst acts of inhumanity that a person may inflict upon others and "ranked high in the long, sad and wretched history of man's inhumanity to man".

Lukić was only the second individual to be sentenced by the tribunal to life imprisonment.

Lukić was also responsible for the Sjeverin and Štrpci massacres, in which non-Serb citizens of Serbia and Montenegro were abducted and then murdered on Bosnian territory.

The failure of the Serbian authorities to conduct an adequate investigation remains a significant political issue in Serbia.