PM calls for action on KLA photo

B92 ^ | November 3, 2003

[joan]

BELGRADE -- Monday – Serbia’s prime minister has called on the international community to react to a photo published in a Belgrade newspaper today showing a group of people dressed in uniforms of the outlawed Kosovo Liberation Army holding a number of severed heads.

Zoran Zivkovic used the continuation of a no confidence debate in his government today to appeal to the United Nations mission in Kosovo, the multinational peacekeeping force and the international community as a whole to identify the people in the photo in Vecernje Novosti, arrest and convict them.

“We kept being told in The Hague [war crimes tribunal] that there’s no evidence of war crimes committed in Kosovo by the Albanian side”, said Zivkovic. “Now we have a document and it takes just a little effort to identify the people in the photo and convict them”.

[joan]

bump

[Consort]

Thanks for the heads-up.

[danneskjold]

[gridlock]

“We kept being told in The Hague [war crimes tribunal] that there’s no evidence of war crimes committed in Kosovo by the Albanian side”,...

Well of course not! Because we all know that....

...say it with me children!...

...Islam is a religion of PEACE!

[joan]

A few more specifics on the photograph:

Holkeri promises Covic to look into photographs case

17:18 BELGRADE , Nov 4 (Tanjug) - State Coordinating Center for Kosovo and Metohija President Nebojsa Covic said on Tuesday he had been assured by UNMIK chief Harri Holkeri that he would investigate the entire case and identity of the persons in the photographs published by the Belgrade daily Vecernje novosti.

Vecernje novosti yesterday published photographs of three members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, and one of them is holding two severed heads of Serb soldiers in his hands.

[joan]

Do you know when that photo was taken - 1998, 1999, winter, spring? Has anyone identified those killed Serb soldiers? That would give a good time reference because likely people would know when they disappeared or died.

It looks like a cool/cold time of year, as everyone is dressed in layers, and some with coats.

The man holding the heads wore a moustache then, so that's a clue. He also looks rather small boned and thin. His neck is quite thin, and head relatively small. It is hard to tell his height. He looks taller than the one standing to his left, but it appears that man is standing on lower ground and is behind him. I'd guess him to be 5'8" or 5'9" inches tall, and a few years into his 30's.

What's your estimate of the man's age and height? Of couse, if this was in 1998/1999, he'd be 4 or 5 years older now. What are the estimates of the police on that man or any of the others in the photo?

[joan]

There's a better quality view of the photo here (scroll to midway down): http://groups.yahoo.com/group/decani/message/77934

And the detail shows the man to be older and uglier and with bad teeth, and the caption IDENTIFIES him, and that's his son to his left. (A family thing for the innocent ethnic Albanians - cutting off heads!):

Caption reads:

"The Albanian in the middle is Sadik Chuflaj, a member of the KLA from the Decani area. The young man to his left is his son Valon Chuflaj, born in April 1981 in the village of Prilep, municipality of Decani. He has an UNMIK identity card and is now a member of the Kosovo Protection Corps with the rank of lieutenant. He works in the inspector's office in Pec. UNMIK has taken disciplinary measures against him on two occasions. After cross-checking, our reporters were led to the assumption that the visible human head on the right is the head of Bojan Cvetkovic, born in Nis in 1972."

[joan]

Okay, what I notice about that photo is that the head he holds in his left hand appears to be also hacked off in back. You can see, below the head's left ear, that there is flesh, blood, bone and perhaps brain matter. The scalp and hair flap forward above the ear as there's not scalp to hold it back. And on top, the scalp pulls up when the guy holds it - he actually seems to be squeezing it around the edge for grip. The other head has a back so that's why he can rest it in his palm. You'll also notice the neck and how the skin hangs down in the shape of a "U", from this you can tell it was sliced at an angle in the back taking off more as it goes up.