Serbs to try almost 200 soldiers for Kosovo war crimes
Nearly 200 Yugoslav army officers and soldiers are either undergoing trial for alleged war crimes in Kosovo, will do so, or already have been tried, Serb military officials said today.
The military has previously said that 24 soldiers are facing or have faced legal action on similar charges.
Today’s announcement said 182 army members were at some stage in the legal process.
The increased numbers reflected growing acceptance on the part of the army that its members committed atrocities against Kosovo Albanians during their crackdown that ended in mid-1999 after prolonged Nato bombing.
Charges of atrocities on the part of Yugoslav forces during that conflict were initially raised by the United States, its allies and human rights organisations but denied under former President Slobodan Milosevic.
During the Nato bombing, the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, indicted Milosevic in connection with those atrocities, along with several close associates.
Milosevic now is in custody in Belgrade, awaiting a domestic trial on wrongdoings while in office, and the Yugoslav leadership has sent conflicting signals on whether he will be extradited to the court in The Hague.
An army statement said that the military prosecutor had ordered investigations against, ‘‘soldiers, noncommissioned officers and officers for crimes resulting in deaths and injuries of civilians as well as deprivation of their basic human rights during combat activities in the province of Kosovo in 1998 and 1999.’’
Last week, army spokesman Colonel Svetozar Radisic said military courts have tried or were trying 24 soldiers suspected of war crimes in Kosovo.
While denying allegations of a systematic campaign of war crimes against the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, the Yugoslav army has said before that if any of its troops had committed atrocities, they would be brought to justice.
Last November - a month after Milosevic relinquished office - a military court convicted three soldiers of murder for killing an elderly ethnic Albanian couple and handed down 4 1/2 year prison terms.
Thousands of ethnic Albanians are believed to have been killed during the Serb crackdown, while hundreds of thousands of civilians were driven from their homes.
