Drenica

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA - A sign reading "KLA" - short for "Kosovo Liberation Army" - has been erected on a hill overlooking Kosovska Mitrovica.

The large red sign can be seen on the Crnusa hill, designated by local authorities in the southern, ethnic Albanian-populated part of Kosovoska Mitrovica as the site of a new Kosovo Security Force base, the RTS reported.

Jakup Krasniqi told the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague during opening statements in the case against him and three other ex-guerrillas that he denies the charges, some of which he described as "absurd".

Krasniqi, 72, told the court he had nothing to do with the war crimes and crimes against humanity mentioned in the indictment.

Sejdi Zymeri's house in the village of Likovc/Likovac is close to where the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA used to have its headquarters in the Drenica region, the guerrillas' wartime heartland.

Naxhije Bucinca remembers the morning of March 16, 1998 as cold and overcast; she wore warm clothes and flat shoes suitable for a long walk.

"Milosevic's regime had intensified the murders, the displacement, and the burning of houses and granaries," said Bucinca, who is now 88 years old. "People in Drenica were left without shelter or bread."

The Basic Prosecution in Peja/ Pec on Friday said that it had filed a lawsuit against Kelkos Energy, the Austrian company operating hydropower plants in Decan/ Glogovac, in the district of Gjakova/ Djakovica, for damages caused by the plant pipeline. The prosecution said Kelkos Energy had caused "general danger". 

Kosovo's Special Prosecution said in a statement on Wednesday that a suspect identified only by the initials M.A. has been detained "for the criminal offence 'war crimes against the civilian population'".

The prosecution said that the person who was arrested, an ethnic Albanian who holds Serbian citizenship, will soon appear before a pre-trial judge.

Sejdiu was not in Qirez/Cirez that day as he was visiting a relative, but when he tried to return, he soon found out that the village was packed with Serbian forces.

"I was told by dozens of local residents that in Likoshan and Qirez, a battle was unfolding and I heard voices telling me to stop going forward," he recalled.

For two decades, voters in the town of Skenderaj/Srbica in Kosovo's Drenica Valley have been pledging their support to the Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK and its former leader Hashim Thaci, the wartime political chief of the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA who went on to dominate politics in the country in the years after the conflict.

Sabit Geci, a former Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA commander, said he was interviewed on Thursday by the Kosovo Specialist Prosecution, which is probing wartime and post-war crimes.

Ngritja e Zerit gathers and classifies evidence in support of claims for damages that resulted from the Kosovo war.

Without any financial support from the state, Bejta and Osaj have been helping ordinary Kosovo citizens prepare lawsuits, and have refused to give up despite the fact that every case they have prepared so far has been rejected by the courts in the country.