Pavlan

Tijana Vasic, the former sister-in-law of Milan Ivanovic, told Belgrade Higher Court on Monday that the defendant was at home with his family when the massacre of Kosovo Albanians in which he was allegedly involved took place in April 1999.

A hearing in the trial of 11 former Yugoslav Army soldiers for war crimes in four Kosovo villages in May 1999 was postponed at Belgrade Higher Court on Monday, meaning that two full years have passed without any hearing in the case being held.

They ordered over 200 ethnic Albanian villagers to give them their money, jewellery and documents, and then to get into their cars or tractors and leave.

Former serviceman Predrag Vukovic, alias Madzo, who was arrested in Montenegro last year, appeared for the first time at Belgrade Higher Court on Friday at the trial of Yugoslav Army ex-soldiers for war crimes in Kosovo in May 1999.

Haxhi Balaj remembers that it was sunny on May 5, 1999, and that his mother Shehrije was trying to find something for lunch for the family.

They had run out of flour, among the many other things they were missing in those difficult days during the Kosovo war.

Hajrije and Faton Demaku, two ethnic Albanian civilians from the village of Zahac/Zahaq in Kosovo, told Belgrade Higher Court on Thursday how Esma Demaku was taken away by two men after members of Serbian forces made them leave their houses during an attack in May 1999.

Two witnesses told the Belgrade trial of former Serbian fighters how Kosovo Albanian civilians were killed and their homes torched in the villages of Zahaq and Pavlan near Cuska in May 1999.

Eleven Serbian ex-fighters pleaded not guilty to war crimes in the Kosovo villages of Ljubenic, Cuska, Pavlan and Zahac in 1999, but anger erupted in the courtroom after the prosecution changed the indictment again.

War crimes verdicts improve Kosovo-Serbia relations, experts say

The Belgrade court decisions on war crimes committed in Kosovo will help improve the relationship between Albanians and Serbs, experts and citizens said.

Future verdicts by the Belgrade High Court War Crimes Chamber could help improve relations between Serbia and Kosovo. [AFP]

BELGRADE - The Belgrade High Court War Crimes Chamber convicted nine former members of the paramilitary group Sakali (Jackals) of the killing of ethnic Albanian civilians during the conflicts in Kosovo-Metohija in 1999.