Ex-French officer who gave Serbs target info given medal

A disgraced former French officer was honoured by Serbia on Thursday for passing on information about NATO bombing targets in the then-Yugoslavia in 1998.

Pierre-Henri Bunel, 61, was awarded a medal by Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic for “having shown courage and committing a heroic act”.

Bunel supplied classified documents to a Serbian agent based in Brussels, according to a statement from the Serbian presidency.

He was found guilty by a French military court in 2001 for treason and sentenced to two years in prison with three years suspended. He was freed in 2002.

Bunel admitted that he passed documents to the Serbian agent, Jovan Milanovic, containing details of the airstrikes that NATO was planning for Yugoslavia over the refusal of Serbia to pull back its troops from Kosovo.

At his trial, Bunel claimed he had wanted to avoid a bloodbath.

NATO carried out a 78-day bombing campaign which led to Serb troops pulling out of Kosovo and brought an end to Serbian government’s repression of the ethnic Albanian population.

The Alliance suspended its bombing on June 10, the day after Belgrade agreed to a full military withdrawal from Kosovo.

Serbia says the NATO airstrikes killed 2,500 civilians, including 89 children, a figure contested by NATO.