Serbia arrests former Kosovo rebels for war crimes
By JOVANA GEC
Associated Press Writer
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) – Serbian police arrested an unspecified number of former Kosovo Albanian rebels Friday for suspected war crimes including murder, rape and torture during the 1998-99 war, the war crimes prosecutor’s office said.
Those arrested are suspected of involvement in the kidnapping of 159 Serb civilians in the eastern Kosovo municipality of Gnjilane in June-October 1999, of whom at least 51 were killed, the prosecutor said in a statement.
Those arrested in the predominantly ethnic Albanian region of Presevo, bordering Kosovo, were suspected of “murder, rape, detention, mutilation, torture and looting,” according to the statement.
The area of Presevo was the scene of a short ethnic Albanian rebellion in 2000-2001 and the arrests risk reigniting tensions in the area.
The statement did not specify how many people were captured or other details. Serbian media reported, without citing sources, that 11 former rebels were detained.
The war crimes prosecutor said that the police operation had taken months to plan because of the “extremely high risk as almost all the suspects were armed.”
There was no immediate reaction from authorities in Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in February.
War in Kosovo started in 1998 with an ethnic Albanian rebellion against Serbian rule. It ended after NATO bombed Serbia for 78 days in 1999.
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