FIVE SERBS ARRESTED OVER ALLEGED CRIME IN RAČAK, IMMEDIATELY BROUGHT BEFORE JUDGE

PRIŠTINA, JUNE 14 /SRNA/ – Five Serbs from the areas of Štrpce and Gnjilane were arrested today on suspicion of involvement in an alleged war crime in Račak in January 1999.

The head of the so-called War Crimes Investigation Directorate, Bashkim Spahiu, said that N.B., S.J., B.P., S.N., and S.S. had been arrested, while a sixth suspect was not found at his address in Štrpce. All five were brought before a pre-trial judge of the Basic Court of the provisional institutions in Priština, who is expected to decide on further measures. Representatives of the so-called Special Prosecutor’s Office in Priština and the so-called Kosovo Police stated at a press conference today that the arrested men were former members of Serbia’s Ministry of Interior and allegedly participated in a police operation in Račak in January 1999. Prosecutor Ilir Morina, responding to questions about how evidence had emerged 27 years later against individuals who had continuously lived in Kosovo and Metohija, said that “justice is delivered when there is evidence” and added that the suspects had been identified on the basis of two video recordings. Morina stressed the investigation into the Račak case had identified several other individuals allegedly involved in the events, and that search and arrest warrants were executed today in connection with those findings, according to Kosovo Online. The Serb List stated that the arrests were unfounded and represented institutional violence and a continuation of the persecution of the Serb people in Kosovo and Metohija. In December last year, the Prosecutor’s Office in Priština filed an indictment in absentia against 21 individuals for an alleged war crime against civilians in Račak during the 1999 conflict in Kosovo and Metohija. They were charged with the alleged killing of 42 civilians during a Serbian police operation in Račak. The village of Račak was known as a stronghold of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army /KLA/, from which attacks against police officers and civilians were beling launched, resulting in multiple deaths. The continued attacks from Račak led to a police operation against the so-called KLA, with the immediate trigger being the killing of one police officer on January 10 and three others two days earlier. Immediately after the clashes in Račak, the then head of the OSCE mission to Kosovo and Metohija, William Walker, accused Serbian forces of allegedly massacring 45 unarmed Albanians, while this ungrounded accusation was later used as a justification for NATO’s bombing campaign against the then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.