Free Republic

Ten Serb policemen accused of having carried out one of the worst massacres in the Kosovo war may soon face justice.By an investigative team in Belgrade and Pristina In the next few days an investigation will be launched against a group of Serbian policemen suspected of having killed 57 members of an Albanian family in Kosovo in spring 1999, Balkan Insight has learned from sources close to the Serbian prosecutor's war crimes office. The slaughter took place in the midst of NATO's air war against Serb forces in Kosovo, which forced them to withdraw from the province that summer. The...

PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro (Reuters) - A senior British diplomat has told Serbs that independence is the best solution for the disputed Serbian province of Kosovo in talks due within days, Serb negotiators said on Tuesday. "[John] Sawers told us the Contact Group had decided Kosovo should be independent. He said Kosovo would be multi-ethnic, but in the end independent," Goran Bogdanovic, a Kosovo Serb, told Belgrade radio B92, after meeting the political director of the British Foreign Office late on Monday. A second Serb negotiator in Belgrade, who attended a meeting between Sawers and the Serbian prime minister on...

he US yesterday made the case for offering Serbia incentives to reach agreement in negotiations over the final status of Kosovo, while setting out the possibility of independence for the province if the ethnic Albanian majority accepted compromises to accommodate its Serbian minority. Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state, told a Senate hearing the US was neither championing independence nor autonomy for Kosovo. But diplomats said his testimony was a clear signal the US looked favourably on independence, under certain conditions. In what diplomats also called a significant policy statement, Mr Burns made clear the US had no objection to independence...

WACO, Texas (Army News Service, Nov. 28, 2005) — A day after Thanksgiving, more than 1,500 Soldiers bound for a 14-month deployment to Kosovo and Bosnia were honored in a ceremony Nov. 25 at Baylor University’s Ferrell Center. A circular sea of green seats was filled by excited and emotional family members and friends at Baylor’s indoor arena in Waco, Texas. They were there to say goodbye to their Soldiers one last time before they departed for the Balkans. It was the first time 36th Infantry Division Soldiers were deploying to Europe since World War II. During the ceremony, guest...

As from 1992 Al-Khaida has ith branches in Bosnia and from 1999 on Kosovo. On Kosovo, there are intensive terrorist training, new idea is to attack targets in Serbia and Europe. British ibstructors payed by Albanian mafia are training Albanian Jihadists on kosovo, speciali suicide womens bombers, whom relatives and family members were killed in 1999 war. Emir Mussa Ayzi, recruiter formed in 2003 groud called "White divills" suicide bombers to act in Serbia, Israel and Europe. Other instructors are Jihadists from Bosnia, former fighters in anti-Serb war. Training camps are also in Northern Albania, supported by present Albanian presidend.

Complexity of war crimes case against ex-Yugoslav president convinced Iraqi prosecutors to condense Saddam charges THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Three years and eight months into the war crimes trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, the courtroom still crackles with explosive outbursts. ...The prosecution of Mr. Milosevic and 125 other people by the 12-year-old tribunal is creating a body of law that many legal experts say will serve as a guide for future war crimes tribunals worldwide. Iraqi judges and officials from war crimes tribunals newly established in Africa and the Balkans have consulted court officials recently.

In an interview with SPIEGEL, Vldan Batic, 56, the former Serbian Justice Minister, talks about how biased the justice system still is in his troubled nation and how the shadow of former President Slobodan Milosevic continues to hover. Even while on trial for war crimes, Milosevic may still be pulling the strings in Serbia. Slobodan Milosevic, first became president of Yugoslavia in 1989, but many say his influence is still felt. Currently, he is in the Netherlands, facing charges of war crimes at The Hague. In his first six years in power, Milosevic ignited conflicts in Croatia (1991) and Bosnia...

Hmmmm... I just watched the movie "Behind the enemy lines". Although it might be a dumb movie but it reminded me of the true story of Capt. Scott O'Grady who was shot down over Bosnia. The film is centred around the Srebrenica Massacre. Admiral Leslie Reigart's (Hackman) carrier battle group is in the final stages of a NATO peace keeping deployment when the F/A-18F Super Hornet of Chris Burnett (Wilson) and his pilot is shot down by renegade Serbian forces. The resulting attempts to rescue the downed aviator are complicated by political considerations which are enforced on Reigart by his...

Nato troops have arrested the son of Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, who is wanted for war crimes. Aleksandar "Sasa" Karadzic was detained in Pale, the Bosnian leadership's stronghold during the 1992-1995 war. Witnesses said he was led away in handcuffs and a flak jacket; a hood was put over his head as he was driven away and then flown out by helicopter. A statement from Nato said the arrest happened without incident and the operation was ongoing. It said Aleksandar Karadzic was suspected of giving support to a war crimes suspect indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for...

Bosnia and Herzegovina (Country threat level - ): On 5 July 2005, Bosnian Serb police officers discovered two devices containing 77 lb/35 kg of explosives near the Potocari memorial center for the victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. Tens of thousands of family members, foreign dignitaries and others are scheduled to visit the site on 11 July for a commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the massacre. A police official stated that the devices were "ready to detonate" and that they were capable of causing large-scale casualties and damage. It has yet to be determined who planted the devices.

Just four years ago it was not unusual to find wanted war criminal Ratko Mladic enjoying himself at one of Belgrade's finer dining establishments or getting drunk and belligerent at a football match. Hailed as a war hero and protected by President Slobodan Milosevic and the Serbian army, the former Bosnian Serb general was living the good life in retirement. In contrast, try to imagine Himmler or Mengele attending opening night at the Vienna Opera House in 1950. Mladic remained on the payroll of both the Serbian and the Bosnian Serb military for years after he was indicted for war...

RFE/RL: How are those indicted for war crimes by the Hague-based tribunal regarded in Serbia and Croatia? Our guests are: Natasa Kandic, director of the Humanitarian Law Center in Belgrade, and Zoran Pusic, president of the Civic Committee for Human Rights in Zagreb. The Serbian government recently saw off former General Vladimir Lazarevic, indicted for crimes committed in Kosovo, with what seemed like full honors as he left for The Hague. He was escorted by two ministers, and before leaving he had an audience with Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Pavle together with Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica. Ms. Kandic, how do...

US Joins in Coordinated Moves on Balkans War Crimes Fugitives By David Gollust State Department 16 December 2004 The international community Thursday announced new measures against Bosnian Serb officials for failing to hand over indicted Balkans war crimes figures to the U.N. tribunal in The Hague. They include targeted sanctions by the United States. The coordinated action by the United States, the International High Representative for Bosnia, Paddy Ashdown, and European Union peacekeepers in Bosnia reflects international frustration that key Balkans war crimes figures remain at large. Mr. Ashdown, international overseer of the 1995 Dayton accords on the Balkans conflict,...

A federal indictment unsealed yesterday charges Marko Boskic, a Peabody construction worker, with fraudulently entering the United States as a refugee and concealing his past as a soldier in a Bosnian Serb Army unit that allegedly executed hundreds of Muslim captives. The five-count indictment was handed down by a grand jury in Boston on Tuesday, a month after Boskic, 40, was arrested on a criminal complaint for immigration fraud. The indictment includes allegations that the Bosnian national killed one or more people ''because of race, religion, nationality, ethnic origin, and political opinion." ''The repulsive crime that underlies this case is...