Families of Kosovo Massacre Victims Protest Against Reduction of Sentence

"We have come to express our revulsion and dissatisfaction with the reduction of the sentence of the criminal Darko Tasic. We will now go inside with a group of five family members and talk to the president of the court and see what he will tell us," Selami Hoti, a representative of one of the families of the victims of the Krushe e Vogel/ Mala Krushe massacre, told BIRN.

Kosovo's Court of Appeals on Tuesday halved the sentence handed down against Tasic, a former police reservist, for the massacre of the ethnic Albanian villagers in March 1999. Tasic was sentenced in June to 22 years in prison by the district court in the southern town of Prizren.

Shpresa Shehu, another participant in the protest, told BIRN that they felt "indignant and worried about the reduction of the sentence of the criminal. He has had insufficient punishment for the crimes he committed." Shehu added that Tasic was also the only person convicted so far for the massacre, and it was "unfair to mitigate his sentence".

Serbian forces machine-gunned 109 males aged between 13 and 72 in a barn in Krusha e Vogel/Mala Krusha during the 1998-99 Kosovo war of independence; prosecutors accused Tasic of burning the bodies and dumping them in a nearby river, as well as robbing and then burning property. Only 20 of the 109 escaped alive.

Witnesses told the court that they had seen Tasic and his father driving an orange truck carrying corpses, setting it on fire and pushing it into the Drini River.

Protest by Krusha family members. Photo: BIRN

Protest of Krusha family members. Photo: BIRN

Protest of Krusha family members. Photo: BIRN