Milan Milutinovià(, ; 19 December 1942 â 2 July 2023) was a Serbian politician who served as the president of Serbia from 1997 to 2002.
Milutinoviàserved as Secretary for Education and Science of Serbia (1977âÂÂ1982), Director of the National Library of Serbia (1983âÂÂ1987), Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to Greece (1989âÂÂ1995), Yugoslavia's Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs (1995âÂÂ1997). After his presidential term expired in December 2002, he surrendered to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia where he was tried for war crimes. He was found not guilty on all charges on 26 February 2009.
Milan Milutinoviàcame from an old Belgrade family. He was born in Belgrade to Aleksandar, a civil engineer, and Ljubica (née JokiÃÂ), an art historian. He attended school in Belgrade and graduated from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law and obtained an LL.M in 1965.
From 1969 to 1971, he was a Member of the Presidency of the Yugoslav Socialist Youth Union, and, from 1974 to 1977 Secretary for Ideology of the City Committee of the League of Communists of Belgrade. MilutinoviÃÂ was a Member of the Federal Parliament of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1969 to 1974, during which time he served, inter alia, on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
From 1977 to 1982, MilutinoviÃÂ was the Secretary for Education, Science and Sport of the Socialist Republic of Serbia. During his term, he worked on a comprehensive reform of the education system. His comparative research on higher education systems in Europe was published in his book, University-Eppur si Muove: University Reform-between Tradition and the Future (Belgrade, 1985). Following his term as Secretary for Education, Milan MilutinoviÃÂ was elected Director of the National Library of Serbia.
In 1987, during the term of Federal Secretary Raif DizdareviÃÂ, Milan MilutinoviÃÂ joined the Federal Secretariat for Foreign Affairs of the SFRY, as Ambassador and Head of Sector for Press, Information and Culture. In September 1989, MilutinoviÃÂ was appointed Ambassador of the SFRY to Greece.
During much of his term as Ambassador to Greece (between 1992 and 1995), MilutinoviÃÂ was Yugoslavia's only Ambassador to a Western state, as, due to the UN embargo imposed in May 1992, new ambassadors could not be appointed, while MilutinoviÃÂ was never withdrawn by Belgrade. In August 1995, MilutinoviÃÂ was appointed Foreign Minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In November 1995, he was one of the leading negotiators during the Bosnia peace negotiations in Dayton, Ohio and one of the draftsmen of what subsequently became the Dayton Peace Accords, which led to the permanent cessation of hostilities in Bosnia-Herzegovina. During his term as Foreign Minister, he also signed several agreements between Yugoslavia and its neighbour Croatia aimed at normalizing relations between the two countries.
After Slobodan Miloà ¡eviÃÂ's second, the last constitutionally allowable, mandate as the president of Serbia, he was controversially elected the president of Yugoslavia. Miloà ¡eviÃÂ's Socialist Party of Serbia still wanted to retain the Serbian presidency, and their first candidate in the Serbian presidential elections in 1997 was Zoran LiliÃÂ. The first two rounds of elections failed as the necessary majority (under the 1990 Constitution) of population failed to vote.
A coalition of Socialist Party of Serbia, Yugoslav Left and New Democracy decided to change their candidate for the repeated elections, as the leader of the nationalist Serbian Radical Party Vojislav à  eà ¡elj won the plurality against LiliÃÂ. Many of the opposition parties, led by the Democratic Party, boycotted the 1997 elections as they expected results manipulation.
MilutinoviÃÂ, a member of Socialist Party of Serbia, was the party's choice after LiliÃÂ's failure. In the second round of elections, held in December 1997, he won 2,177,462 votes or 59.18% by official count, while 50.96% voters turned out. Vojislav à  eà ¡elj, who got 1,383,781 votes or 37.61%, boycotted MilutinoviÃÂ's inauguration ceremony.
As Miloà ¡eviàbecame the president of the Yugoslav Federation, political power shifted to the federal level along with him, and Milutinoviàde facto enjoyed little political influence. However, Milutinoviàwas part of the Yugoslavian government's negotiation group in the Rambouillet Agreement in 1999, a prelude to the NATO campaign against Yugoslavia.
After Miloà ¡eviàand his party were ousted in October 2000 and their political power marginalized on federal, republic and most local levels, Milutinoviàstill remained in office, as his term did not end until 2002. His powers as the president were trivialized from 2000 to 2002, since his political affiliation did not enjoy popular support and he could not be backed up by any other government branch. Milutinoviàwas out of the eye of public performing only the most basic constitutional obligations without any opposition to the Democratic Opposition of Serbia coalition. In 2002, when his mandate expired, the presidential elections were held in which Milutinoviàdid not run. He was succeeded by an acting president Nataà ¡a MiÃÂiÃÂ.
During the transition to democracy in late 2000, Milutinoviàrefused to support a violent suppression of the October Demonstrations in Belgrade. The smooth relations between him and the new government, while in office, incurred the dislike of Miloà ¡eviÃÂ's closest allies, although there had never been an official rupture. At the same time, Milutinoviàdid not enjoy the support of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia, as he in turn was considered, by most of its members, as a close ally of Miloà ¡eviÃÂ.
Upon the expiry of his term in office, Milutinoviàturned himself into International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in 2003. He was tried under joint war crimes indictment along with five other Serb officials including Nikola à  ainoviàand Dragoljub OjdaniÃÂ.
MilutinoviÃÂ was prosecuted on four counts: deportation, murder as a crime against humanity, murder as violation of laws or customs of war, and "other inhumane acts" during the War in Kosovo. The allegations include responsibility for mass murders at various locations during 1999.
According to the indictment, MilutinoviÃÂ had personal responsibility as the president of Serbia, with power over various governmental institutions. He was a member of the Yugoslavian Supreme Defense Council, thus making decisions in regard to the Yugoslavian Army. He also had a power to dissolve the Serbian Parliament. According to the indictment, during wartime his de jure powers were extended to ones belonging to the Parliament during peacetime, including control of the police, subordinate to the Army at the time. This claim was hotly contested by MilutinoviÃÂ's defense counsel and some constitutional lawyers, as the 1990 Constitution was written in view of Serbia possibly becoming a sovereign, unitary state, due to the impending collapse of Tito's Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (which finally occurred in mid-1991).
In reality, Serbia was not sovereign, as it still formed part of Miloà ¡eviÃÂ's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, whose President (Miloà ¡eviÃÂ) held the post of commander-in-chief of the armed forces. In addition, according to the defense, the Supreme Defense Council was not exercising operational control over Yugoslav troops, neither de jure nor de facto.
The ICTY Prosecution also claimed that MilutinoviÃÂ, as the president of Serbia, had de facto influence over the Parliament, the Army and the police (Ministry of Internal Affairs).
On 26 February 2009, Milutinoviàwas acquitted on charges of war crimes. Finding Milutinoviànot guilty on all counts of the indictment, the court ruled that Milutinoviàhad "no direct control over the Yugoslav army". Judge Iain Bonomy blamed Slobodan Miloà ¡eviàfor the alleged crimes, and said that Milutinoviàwas "not a key player in the ruling political party."
Milan Milutinoviàwas married to Olga Milutinovià(née SpasojeviÃÂ) from 6 December 1970 until her death, on 20 January 2017. They have one son, Veljko (born 1979). After his acquittal before the ICTY in 2009, Milutinoviàreturned to live in Belgrade.
MilutinoviÃÂ died on 2 July 2023, at the age of 80.