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Nebojsa Pavkovic at a press conference in Belgrade, June 2002. Photo: EPA/SASA STANKOVIC.

The Serbian Defence Ministry organised an event at the Belgrade Book Fair on Friday to promote a new book by former senior Yugoslav Army officer Nebojsa Pavkovic, who is currently serving a prison sentence for war crimes in Kosovo.

It is also holding a debate at the Book Fair on Friday about the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, with participants including two other men who have been convicted of war crimes, Vladimir Lazarevic and Vinko Pandurevic.

The ministry’s publishing house, Odbrana, published Pavkovic’s latest book, ‘The Smell of Gunpowder and Death in Kosovo and Metohija 1998’ as part of its Ratnik (‘Warrior’) series. Last year, it issued another book by Pavkovic, which it also promoted at the Book Fair.

The ministry said that it was “proud” to promote Pavkovic’s book and host the two other war criminals, arguing that “they have the right to express their views on the historic events in which they participated”, Beta news agency reported.

“The memoirs of General Nebojsa Pavkovic, as well as other commanders and fighters published in the Ratnik edition, contribute in many ways to the truth about the fight during the NATO aggression [bombing of Yugoslavia]. We don’t see any reason to be ashamed of our people’s struggle and those who led that fight,” it added.

But the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Centre NGO accused the Defence Ministry of “openly mocking the victims of crime” by promoting and financing the books and events at the Book Fair.

It also accused the ministry of denying facts established by the UN war crimes court in The Hague.

“The HLC calls on Serbian institutions to stop promoting and rehabilitating convicted war criminals and to pursue a policy that accepts established facts and takes into account the suffering of victims and their families,” it said in a statement.

The Hague Tribunal ruled in January 2014 that Pavkovic and Lazarevic, along with former Yugoslav deputy prime minister Nikola Sainovic and former Serbian police general Sreten Lukic, were guilty of the murder, deportation and inhumane treatment of Kosovo Albanians in 1999.

Pavkovic is still serving his 22-year sentence in Finland.

Lazarevic completed his sentence and returned to Serbia, where he was welcomed as a hero. In 2017, he was appointed as a lecturer at the national military academy.

Pandurevic is one of five senior Bosnian Serb Army officials who were convicted of involvement in the Srebrenica genocide. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison, but was given early release in April 2015.