Momcilo Perisic (born 22 May 1944) was the Chief of the General Staff of the Yugoslav People's Army from 26 August 1993 to 26 November 1998, succeeding Zivota Panic and preceding Dragoljub Ojdanic.
Biography[]
Momcilo Perisic was born on 22 May 1944 in Kostunici, Serbia, Yugoslavia, and he graduated from the military academy in 1966 after joining the Yugoslav People's Army. He later became commander of the Artillery School Centre in Zadar (in present-day Croatia), and he fought against the Croats during the Croatian War of Independence from 1992 to 1993. His shelling of Zadar earned him a 20-year sentence in absentia by a Croatian court, but Serbia did not arrest him after the war's end. In April 1993 he took command of the Yugoslav 3rd Army in Nis, and on 26 August 1993, he was made Chief of the General Staff of the Yugoslav People's Army, which was fighting in both the Croatian War of Independence and the Bosnian War, in which it committed several atrocities against Bosniaks. After the war, the International Criminal Court (ICC) tried him for war crimes, but it was found that he had no control over Ratko Mladic, who was in turn arrested for ordering several massacres of Bosnian Muslims. In 2013, Perisic was acquitted of the charges pressed against him.