Trial of KLA Members Opens in The Hague

The trial of three former members of the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) began this week with opening statements by the Prosecution and some of the Accused. Fatmir Limaj, Isak Musliu and Haradin Bala face charges for crimes allegedly committed between May and July 1998 against Kosovo Serbs and Albanians. The crimes include kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, torture, cruel treatment and murder.

Prosecutor Andrew Cayley addressed the Court first with a reminder of what the trial is not about. It is not about the justness of the KLA cause or of Serbia's actions and reactions. As with all trials before the ICTY, the purpose is to determine whether these particular individuals committed the specific crimes charged. As Cayley said, no cause justifies torture, physical abuse and murder.

Cayley then described the consequences of what he called a campaign to target Serbs and Albanians who were considered collaborators, often only because of their contact with Serbs. The campaign consisted of kidnapping, imprisonment in a makeshift camp at Llapushnik/Lapusnik, brutal beatings, subjection to deplorable, unhygienic conditions, a lack of medical care, inadequate food, and murder. Cayley showed photographs of the approximately 30 victims who were killed, telling a little about each and how they were kidnapped and murdered.

One of the victims was a Kosovar Albanian dismissed from the police force and tried by the Milosevic regime. He disappeared following a visit to KLA headquarters. His family believed he was working with the KLA, but when they didn't hear from him they went looking. They were told not to. They later learned the KLA had imprisoned him at Llapushnik/Lapusnik and kept him in a stable where he was beaten very badly until he was finally taken out and executed. His body was left lying on a public road as a lesson to others. The Prosecution alleges Limaj and Musliu ordered the killing.

Three Kosovo Serbs (two brothers and a friend), Milovan and Miodrag Krstic and Slobodan Mitrovic, were all fathers of young children. The latter spoke Albanian and counted Albanians among his friends. The three men were kidnapped by the KLA when they were returning home from Belgrade where Miodrag had received medical treatment. Survivors reported seeing them in the makeshift prison at Llapushnik/Lapusnik, but they have not been seen since. Cayley told the Court that Mitrovic's wife Liljana will testify. Because there is no body, he said, 'she lives a life of suspended animation,' unable to go forward or backward.

Zivorad Krstic was a 68 year old retired widower with three daughters. Friends described him as 'a gentle soul, universally liked by both Albanian and Serb neighbors.' He was also a sick man, a diabetic who had recently undergone eye surgery for cataracts. Returning home after attending his brother's funeral he was taken off a bus by KLA soldiers. He was last seen at Llapushnik/Lapusnik camp.

Fehmi Zena went looking for his brother who had gone missing. KLA members detained him, took him to KLA headquarters, tied and blindfolded him and put him in a car that took him to Llapushnik/Lapusnik. The Prosecutor alleges that Bala, Musliu and two other soldiers came into his cell, tied and blindfolded him and took him away. Later Bala and Musliu dragged him back into the cell half-conscious and terribly beaten, begging for water and experiencing pains in his chest. Twenty minutes later he died.

The Prosecutor continued with its litany of murdered Albanian and Serb civilians (only one of the killed was a soldier and he was off duty), briefly describing their families and their humble, ordinary occupations, followed by their inexplicable abduction by KLA soldiers, detention at Llapushnik/Lapusnik and murder. In July 1998, when Serbs retook the area, the KLA abandoned Llapushnik/Lapusnik camp. According to the charges, Bala led approximately twenty prisoners out of the camp into the Berisha mountains. Nine or ten were released, the remaining men were made to sit on the ground in a straight line. Three soldiers opened fire with automatic weapons, killing all but two who escaped into the woods.

Limaj is charged as a (regional) commander with overall responsibility for the Llapushnik/Lapusnik camp, for failing to prevent or punish the crimes committed by his subordinates, Bala and Musliu. He is also charged with planning, instigating, ordering, committing or otherwise aiding and abetting some of the crimes, including the murder of approximately eleven detainees in the woods. Bala and Musliu are charged for their direct participation in the crimes. Bala was a guard in the camp, while Musliu was the camp commander. Musliu has also been charged as a commander who failed in his duties under the Geneva Conventions. They have all denied responsibility and pled not guilty. They deny there was a prison camp at Llapushnik/Lapusnik and, therefore, deny charges of inhumane treatment, torture and murder associated with it.

Cayley told the Court that the alleged incidents at Lapusnik first came to light when one of the survivors complained to local police in Kosovo, then to UNMIK (United Nations Military Force in Kosovo), which initiated an investigation, later taken over by the ICTY. It is the first case before the ICTY against Kosovo Albanians for crimes committed during the Kosovo conflict, in this instance, before NATO involvement. In three other cases, high Serbian officials, including Slobodan Milosevic, other politicians and military officers, have been indicted by the Tribunal for crimes committed during the 1999 phase of the Kosovo conflict. As Limaj advised the Court, no members of Serb forces have been indicted for crimes during 1998 offensives against Kosovo Albanians which resulted in 3000 dead and hundreds of thousands internally displaced.

Statements by the Accused followed the Prosecutor's opening statement.