Witnesses Accuse Serbian Ex-Police Officer of Abuse and Murder

Prosecution witnesses in the war crimes trial of former Serbian police officer Dusko Arsic accused him on Tuesday of beating one of the injured parties and taking part in the expulsion of civilians and then the looting and torching of their homes in Pristina between January and June 1999.

One witness, identified only by the initials I.K., told Pristina basic court that he saw blood on the face and back of Artan Krasniqi, a minor at the time and who prosecutors say was beaten by Arsic and ordered to carry the body of another person who had been shot dead.

I.K described Krasniqi as being in "a serious condition". 

"In the beginning, he said the name Dusko and mentioned the names Dragan and Boban," the witness said. "He told us about someone who was injured, but we didn't believe him, but then it turned out to be true." 

Arsic is accused of participating in the execution of a person identified as B.Sh. on February 20, 1999 in the Kosovo village of Butovc. The alleged killers ordered Krasniqi, who was 15 years old at the time, to carry the body on his back.

Arsic hit Krasniqi in the lower back with the barrel of a machine gun, the indictment states. When he fell to the ground, the Serbian police and paramilitaries began abusing him physically and psychologically.

Krasniqi had said that B.Sh was still breathing when he carried him and that nobody had believed him until his remains were found after the war.

At a hearing on June 7, the father of the injured Krasniqi, G.K., also quoted his son as identifying the killers as "Dragan, Boban and Dusko Arsic".

Another witness, A.M., said that while cutting trees with his father in 2000 they had noticed some clothing. "We got close and saw that it was a human body," he...