A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY
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| Volume 6 Number 38 - Tuesday, September 21st, 2004 |
A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY |
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The Orthodox Christian News Service |
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UN Charges Ethnic Albanians Over Serb Shooting
PRISTINA (AP)--An international prosecutor has indicted ethnic Albanians in the fatal drive-by shooting of a Serb teenager and the destruction of a Serbian Orthodox church earlier this year, a U.N. official said Wednesday.
The suspects in the shooting, who have been detained since the June 5 slaying, were charged Monday with aggravated murder, attempted aggravated murder and illegal possession of weapons, said Neeraj Singh, a U.N. spokesman.
The victim, Dimitrije Popovic, was killed when the suspects fired several shots from an automatic weapon while driving past a group of Kosovo Serbs standing at a hamburger booth in Gracanica, a Serb enclave about 15 kilometers east of Kosovo's capital, Pristina.
"The indictment alleges the murder was premeditated and motivated by ethnic hatred," Singh said.
If tried and convicted, the suspects -identified as Labinot Gashi and a juvenile male whose name was withheld -would face at least 10 years in prison for the murder charge alone, he said. A trial date has not yet been set.
In a separate case, the prosecutor also indicted three ethnic Albanians for the destruction of the 14th-century Holy Virgin of Ljevis Church in the southern Kosovo town of Prizren.
Mobs turned the ancient brick church into a gutted hulk during a mid-March rampage that left 19 people killed and more than 900 others injured.
Mobs of ethnic Albanians attacked Serbs and their property in two days of violence after reports that Serbs had drowned three ethnic Albanian children in a river. Some 600 homes and several Serbian Orthodox churches were destroyed.
The three suspects -Bekim Moskov, Ibrahim Buleci and Talat Pula -were charged with inciting national, racial, religious or ethnic hatred, causing general danger resulting in sizable property loss, destroying objects of cultural heritage and aggravated theft of church property, Singh said.
Pula also was charged with participation in a group that attacked U.N. offices. The three face up to eight years in prison on the charge of inciting hatred only, Singh said.
Kosovo's minority Serbs have been targeted by ethnic Albanian extremists in revenge attacks since mid-1999, when the U.N. and NATO took control of the province after NATO airstrikes ended a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.
The war killed an estimated
10,000 people, mostly ethnic Albanians. |
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