Albania condemns arrests in Preshevo valley

TIRANA, Jan 5 – Albania harshly condemned the recent arrests in South Serbia of ten former Kosova Liberation Army soldiers on allegations they committed war crimes.
“The disproportional use of force, police brutality against the arrested and their families, including women and children, who allege psychological and physical pressure and the timing of this operation makes us doubt that these actions don’t have a political and ethnic motive,” said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement.
The ministry called on international organizations to monitor the situation and asked Belgrade for transparency on the issue.
Preshevo and Bujanovc, municipalities where ethnic Albanians are in a majority, were the scenes of armed conflict between Serbian security forces and the Liberation Army of Preshevo, Medvedja and Bujanovc.
The 10 suspects are expected to be charged in connection with the kidnapping of 159 Serbs and the deaths of at least 51 of them in the eastern Kosova municipality of Gjilan from June to October 1999, the war crimes prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
They are suspected of murder, rape, detention, mutilation, torture and looting.
Three suspected group leaders are still at large, and Serbia will seek help from the U.N. administration in Kosova to apprehend them, Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said.
The 1998-99 war in Kosova – then a province of Serbia – began with an ethnic Albanian separatist rebellion and ended after a 78-day NATO bombing campaign forced Serbia’s army and police to pull out of Kosova.
Nine of the suspects were transferred to custody in Belgrade, while one remains in southern Serbia as part of a continuing investigation, the interior minister said.