Serb Policemen Seek War Crime Trial Acquittal in Kosovo

In closing arguments at Pristina Basic Court on Friday, defence lawyer Dejan Vasic said that no evidence had presented found to prove that his client Zlatan Krstic participated in the attack in Nerodime e Eperme/Gornje Nerodimlje in March 1999 that left four members of one family dead.

"We have shown our full respect for the [victims'] family, because as Zlatan told everyone, we are very sorry for what happened. But no direct involvement in any of the acts he is charged with in this indictment has been established," Vasic said.

"At no stage of the trial did any witness say that my client committed that act," he added.

Lawyers for the other defendant, Destan Shabanaj, also called for an acquittal due to a lack of evidence.

Shabanaj addressed the court and insisted that he was innocent.

"The politically motivated indictment is unstable not only from the legal point of view but also from the point of view of common sense," he said.

The indictment alleges that Krstic was directly involved in an attack on ethnic Albanians in the village of Nerodime e Eperme/Gornje Nerodimlje in the Ferizaj/Urosevac municipality on March 26, 1999.

The attack was followed by torture, destruction of property, expulsions and abductions of 19 members of a local ethnic Albanian family, according to the charges. Four members of the family were killed.

The indictment also alleges that on April 1, 1999, while on duty as a police inspector and armed with automatic weapons, Shabanaj ordered the bodies of the four victims, plus a fifth person, to be buried in violation of international humanitarian law.

It claims that Shabanaj gave the order with "the intent of desecrating, humiliating and subjecting the lifeless bodies to demeaning...