Kosovo Charges Arrested Serb with Wartime Killings

The detained suspect, named by the Serbian authorities as Zoran Djokic, was charged on Monday with committing war crimes against civilians in Peja/Pec in March and April 1999.

According to the indictment, the defendant, together with an organised criminal group of Serbs wearing military, paramilitary and police uniforms of forces committed war crimes in which 33 Kosovo Albanian civilians were killed.

"The defendant Z. Dj., during the months of March-April 1999, in the Kristal neighbourhood in Peja… caused suffering, the violation of physical/psychological integrity, the intimidation of the unprotected civilian population, murder, robbery of a citizen or of a place, and [gave an] order for the displacement of the civilian population or of particular civilian individuals who were not taking part directly in the conflict," Kosovo's Special Prosecution said in a statement.

The Serbian government office for Kosovo said that Djokic was arrested on Feburary 1 at the Jarinje border crossing between Serbia and Kosovo on suspicion of war crimes.

"Kosovo police firstly held him for two hours at the border and then conducted him under armed escort to Pec, while his 12-year-old child had to witness to that harassment and then to continue alone to Kosovska Mitrovica," the office said in a statement.

The statement said that Djokic was a displaced person from Peja/Pec and claimed that his arrest was "one more confirmation that Pristina doesn't intend to give up the intimidation campaign against Serb people in Kosovo through the misuse of so-called secret lists of war crimes suspects".