Belgrade Higher Court

Hajrije and Faton Demaku, two ethnic Albanian civilians from the village of Zahac/Zahaq in Kosovo, told Belgrade Higher Court on Thursday how Esma Demaku was taken away by two men after members of Serbian forces made them leave their houses during an attack in May 1999.

In a final ruling that was made public on Monday, Belgrade Appeals Court cleared Milorad 'Legija' Ulemek and six other former members of the Special Operations Unit, JSO of involvement in a rebellion in November 2001 against the Serbian government led by Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.

Tomislav Kovac, who was deputy interior minister in the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity in July 1995, when the Kravica massacre happened, told Belgrade Higher Court on Tuesday that Ljubisa Beara, who at the time was the security chief of the Main Headquarters of the Bosnian Serb Army, was to blame for the killings.

Six of the eight defendants in the Lovas trial gave closing statements at Belgrade Higher Court on Tuesday, insisting that they were not guilty of war crimes and asking for acquittals.

One of them, Radislav Josipovic, said he was sorry for the victims who were killed in the Croatian village in October 1991.

A new report by the Humanitarian Law Centre NGO in Belgrade, published on Wednesday, said war crimes proceedings in Serbia are subject to long delays and that justice is being further postponed when retrials are held.

Serbian Radical Party MP Vjerica Radeta told BIRN that she and her party colleague Petar Jojic will not go to the The Hague voluntarily to face trial for contempt of court, despite the latest ruling by the UN's Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals.

Belgrade Higher Court on Wednesday sentenced Milan Dragisic, a former soldier in the Bosnian Serb Army, to four years in prison for killing a Bosniak civilian and attempting to murder two others on September 20, 1992 during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Belgrade Higher Court. Photo: BIRN.

Belgrade Higher Court on Tuesday sentenced former Yugoslav Army officer Rajko Kozlina to 15 years in prison for the murders of Kosovo Albanian civilians in the village of Trnje/Terrne on March 25, 1999, while acquitting his superior, Pavle Gavrilovic.

Gashi said there were 30 people in her house when the attack started, including some who had already been displaced from other villages in Kosovo by the fighting.

Belgrade Higher Court ordered a medical examination of a Serbian ex-commander on trial for the murders of Kosovo Albanian civilians in Trnje in 1999 after several hearings were postponed due to the defendants’ health issues.