Klečka killings

The fifth witness in the war crimes and crimes against humanity trial of former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci and three others told the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague on Monday that masked men wearing Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA emblems kidnapped three people and murdered one of them.

"President Thaci and these gentlemen were freedom fighters trying to liberate Kosovo from a terrible situation that they were suffering for decades from the Serb regime and during the course of this trial we are going to demonstrate that," Kehoe said.

Malcolm Simmons, a former head judge for the EU rule-of-law mission in Kosovo, EULEX told the Kosovo parliamentary commission on legislation on Monday that the mission prioritised putting prominent wartime figures on trial despite having little evidence, and failed to protect witnesses and deliver justice.

Police announced on Wednesday that a Serb man has been arrested on suspicion of committing war crimes in the Emshir neighbourhood of Pristina on May 21, 1999 during the Kosovo war.

Kosovo courts have taken over war crimes cases from EULEX, and apart from the crimes committed by the KLA ("Kosovo Liberation Army") against Serbs, they will also deal with crimes against the Albanians that the Serbs are suspected of committing.

The newspaper said on Monday that Limaj was a member of a group ten defendant acquitted of charges of crimes against civilians and members of the Serbian (Yugoslav) Army and (Serbian) police in the village of Klecka near Suva Reka in 1998.

Dozens of people were killed and massacred there, their bodies thrown into a lime pit to cover up the crime.

An appeals court upheld the verdict acquitting former Kosovo Liberation Army commander Fatmir Limaj, who is now deputy prime minister, clearing him of responsibility for the murders of two ethnic Albanian civilians in 1998.

They were spending a summer day on the banks of the Bistrica River, near their homes in the Serb enclave of Gorazdevac - a village in the western part of Kosovo.

19-year-old Ivan Jovovic, and 12-year-old Pantelija Dakic were killed in the attack.

A Serb who was arrested at a border crossing between Kosovo and Serbia on suspicion of having committed war crimes against civilians has been remanded in custody for a month by a Pristina court.

Former guerrilla commander Fatmir Limaj, now deputy prime minster in Kosovo, was cleared of responsibility for the murder of two Kosovo Albanian civilians in October 1998.