Goran "Guri" Radosavljević (born 1957) is a Serbian former police

colonel general Colonel general is a three- or four-star military rank used in some armies. It is particularly associated with Germany, where historically general officer ranks were one grade lower than in the Commonwealth and the United States, and was a ra ...

and the Commander of the Gendarmery of Serbia from 2001 to 2004. During the

Kosovo War The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that started 28 February 1998 and lasted until 11 June 1999. It was fought by the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (i.e. Serbia and Montenegro), which controlled Kosovo before the war ...

he was in the Special Police Units (Serbia) and the leader of a group of counter-terrorist teams that combated the

Kosovo Liberation Army The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA; , UÇK) was an ethnic Albanian separatist militia that sought the separation of Kosovo, the vast majority of which is inhabited by Albanians, from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and Serbia during the ...

(KLA).

Early life

He was born in 1957 in

Aranđelovac Aranđelovac ( sr-cyr, Аранђеловац, ) is a town and a municipality located in the Šumadija District of central Serbia. , the municipality has a population of 46,225 inhabitants, while the town has 24,797 inhabitants. It is situated be ...

SR Serbia , life_span = 1944–1992 , status = Constituent state of Yugoslavia , p1 = Territory of the Military Commander in Serbia , flag_p1 = Flag of German Reich (1935–1945).svg , p2 ...

SFR Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as SFR Yugoslavia or simply as Yugoslavia, was a country in Central and Southeast Europe. It emerged in 1945, following World War II, and lasted until 1992, with the breakup of Yug ...

. Radosavljević graduated from the Faculty for Physical Culture. He worked in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia since 1985. He initially taught in special combat, and then became the head of the relevant department.

After the Kosovo War

According to some analysts, Radosavljević as commander of operational police pursuit groups had prominent role in

overthrow of Slobodan Milošević The overthrow of Slobodan Milošević in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, began after the presidential election on 24 September and culminated in the downfall of Slobodan Milošević's government on 5 October 2000. It is sometimes referred to as the 5 Oct ...

, as he refused to intervene against demonstrators. As a credit to his decision, the new regime under

Zoran Đinđić Zoran Đinđić ( sr-Cyrl, Зоран Ђинђић, ; 1 August 1952 – 12 March 2003) was a Serbian politician who served as the prime minister of Serbia from 2001 until his assassination in 2003. He was the mayor of Belgrade in 1997. Đinđić ...

appointed him to became the first commander of the re-established Gendarmery of Serbia on 28 June 2001 and stayed in that position until 17 August 2004. On 1 February 2005, he was retired from the service. In 2003, the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

agreed to the deployment of 1,000 Yugoslav soldiers to Afghanistan, commanded by General Goran Radosavljević. On 17 December 2006, the Serbian police issued a warrant for Goran Radosavljević, however with no

indictment An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a legal person, person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felony, felonies, the most serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use the felonies concep ...

being issued against him. In 2007, he went public and denounced the rumors that he had been hiding. By 2010, Radosavljević had decided to join the

Serbian Progressive Party The Serbian Progressive Party ( sr-cyrl, Српска напредна странка, Srpska napredna stranka, SNS) has been the ruling political party of Serbia since 2012. Founded by Tomislav Nikolić and Aleksandar Vučić in 2008 as a s ...

and enrolled in politics. In May 2014, Radosavljević was named the Executive Committee member of the ruling

(SNS).

War crime allegations

During the

(1998–1999), he led a cluster of counter-terrorism teams that were known as the

Operational Group {{Unreferenced, date=October 2008 Operational Group ( pl, Grupa Operacyjna, abbreviated GO) was the highest level of tactical division of the Polish Army before and during World War II and the invasion of Poland. It was corps-sized, although variou ...

(OPG). They were established to counter Kosovo Liberation Army which sought to separate

Kosovo Kosovo ( sq, Kosova or ; sr-Cyrl, Косово ), officially the Republic of Kosovo ( sq, Republika e Kosovës, links=no; sr, Република Косово, Republika Kosovo, links=no), is a partially recognised state in Southeast Euro ...

from Serbia. The OPG were later suspected of killing 41 ethnic-Albanian civilians in the Ćuška massacre in western Kosovo in May 1999. A number of human rights groups have claimed that the OPG committed war crimes against civilians. Radosavljević was the person in charge of the military operation in Račak on 15 January 1999, which would become known as the

Račak massacre The Račak massacre ( sq, Masakra e Reçakut) or Račak operation ( sr, Акција Рачак/Akcija Račak) was the massacre of 45 Kosovo Albanians that took place in the village of Račak ( sq, Reçak) in central Kosovo in January 1999. The ...

. The Serbian War Crime's prosecutor also brought him in connection with the killing of the Bytyqi brothers, three

Albanian American Albanian Americans ( sq, shqiptaro-amerikanët) are Americans of full or partial Albanian ancestry and heritage in the United States. They trace their ancestry to the territories with a large Albanian population in the Balkans among others to ...

brothers who came to Kosovo to fight on the side of the KLA. Radosavljević was in charge of a Serb police training facility at Petrovo Selo where the Bytyqi brothers were detained, tortured, executed, and buried in a mass grave. In December 2018,

US State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...

issued sanctions on Radosavljević after credibly implicating him in the 1999 murder of the Bytyqi brothers. The sanctions ban Radosavljević, his wife and daughter from entering the United States.

References

External links

Goran Radosavljević Guri
at vreme.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Radosavljevic, Goran 1957 births Living people People from Aranđelovac Serbian police officers Colonel generals Serbian Gendarmerie Serbian military personnel of the Kosovo War Individuals sanctioned by the United States Department of State