The first individual lawsuit against NATO over the use of depleted uranium munitions in 1999 was filed with the Higher Court in Belgrade on Wednesday on behalf of an unnamed Serbian military officer, the Russian Sputnik said on its Serbian-language portal.

It said that the lawsuit was filed by lawyer Srdjan Aleksic and added that it includes a demand for compensation for his client who has contracted cancer which was allegedly caused by depleted uranium munitions while he was deployed in what is now known as the Ground Safety Zone along the administrative border of Kosovo during the NATO air campaign of 1999.

Aleksic told the Srna news agency that an Italian lawyer had successfully filed suit on behalf of Italian soldiers deployed in Kosovo who contracted cancer from leftover munitions. He said that people in Bosnia-Herzegovina should do that same. “We are filing suit on behalf of officers, conscript soldiers, police officers and reservist veterans who were deployed in Kosovo and contracted some form of cancer,” he said, adding that the suit included evidence from the US and World Health Organization on the effects of depleted uranium.

“I planned to file five lawsuits to see how NATO will react. I expect the first response in July because the delivery through diplomatic channels takes months,” he told the state TV (RTS). He said that NATO aircraft dropped 15 tons of depleted uranium munitions on southern Serbia and Kosovo, and claimed that those munitions can cause eight types of cancer identical to what 7,600 Italian soldiers deployed in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina were diagnosed with.