Head of Serb TV jailed over deaths in Nato air raids

A Belgrade court convicted the former head of the Serbian state television, RTS, yesterday for failing to protect 16 employees killed in a Nato air raid on the station in April 1999.

The court found that Dragoljub Milanovic had not ensured the safety of the employees, even though he knew the television headquarters were a Nato target. He was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison.

The judge said: "You are guilty of the premeditated negligence of the safety of your employees. You were fully aware of the dangers your people faced and did nothing to protect them ... However, this sentence does not absolve Nato from what it did."

Sixteen employees of RTS, mostly young people, died when a single Nato rocket hit the building in downtown Belgrade on 23 April three years ago. The hit remains one of the most controversial events in the 11 weeks of Nato air raids against Serbia in 1999.

Nato described RTS as part of Mr Milosevic's war machine and a legitimate target. But the Serb regime was accused of exploiting the deaths of 16 people to score points in its anti-Nato and anti-Western propaganda campaign. There was a public outcry when it was revealed after the Nato campaign that the employees might have been sacrificed deliberately by Slobodan Milosevic and Milanovic, one of his closest aides.

Hundreds of important offices, ministries and installations were unmanned during the air raids in 1999. Only RTS, the powerful propaganda tool of Mr Milosevic, maintained full shifts throughout.

In the trial, Milanovic did not provide answers as to why he failed to relocate RTS. The court established that plans did exist but were shelved by the editor-in-chief.

Yesterday, the families of victims, who had accused Milanovic of keeping his staff at the station to help Mr Milosevic score a propaganda victory, hardly saw the verdict as a triumph of justice. "There is no way to be satisfied with any sentence," said Zanka Stojanovic, whose son was killed. "Milanovic will be a free man one day and our dearest ones can not be brought back".

Exhausted by their efforts to prove that Milanovic was guilty for the deaths of their relatives, they cried silently as the sentence was pronounced. The women wore traditional black mourning clothes, and the faces of the fathers and brothers were grim.

Vlasta Bankovic, the father of Ksenija, who died in the attack, said: "It's not only Milanovic I blame. The guilt goes all the way up, to Milosevic ... Milanovic was only following his orders." The case against Milanovic started well after Mr Milosevic fell from power in October 2000.

Slobodan Sisic, lawyer for the families of the victims, said the sentence against Milanovic showed "that the justice system in Serbia has finally started to function". He added that the trial "was a pioneer's task", referring to the many staged trials and politically motivated sentences in Mr Milosevic's era.

Milanovic walked out of the courtroom without any sign of sympathy. During the months of the trial, he refused to admit he had done anything wrong.