BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) - Nearly 200 Yugoslav army officers and soldiers have been charged with committing war crimes in Kosovo, and the trials of some have already started, military officials said Tuesday.
The military has previously said that 24 soldiers are facing - or have faced - legal action on similar charges.
Tuesday's announcement said 183 army members were at some stage in the legal process, and a ranking officer from the army's legal branch said more charges were likely. The increased numbers reflected growing acceptance on the part of the army that its members committed atrocities against Kosovo Albanians during their crackdown in the southern Serbian province.
Thousands of ethnic Albanians are believed to have been killed during the Serb crackdown, while hundreds of thousands of civilians were driven from their homes. The 78-day NATO (news - web sites) bombing in 1999 eventually forced the Yugoslav army and Serb police to withdraw from the province, now under international control. Ousted president Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites) has been indicted by the international war crimes tribunal for alleged Kosovo atrocities.
The charges include murder, harassment and maltreatment, illegal arrests, beatings and stealing, said the army legal officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said more cases were pending, but gave no details,
``We want to expose individuals for their crimes and avoid collective guilt for the entire nation,'' the officer said. He refused to say how many trials had resulted in convictions or what penalties were handed down.
While denying allegations of a systematic campaign of war crimes in Kosovo, the Yugoslav army has said before that if any of its troops had committed atrocities, they would be brought to justice.
An army statement Tuesday said the military prosecutor had ordered investigations against ``soldiers, noncommissioned officers and officers ... for crimes resulting in deaths and injuries of civilians as well as deprivation of their basic human rights during combat activities in the province of Kosovo in 1998 and 1999.''
Beyond the increased figure, the statement provided no details.
Last week, army spokesman Col. Svetozar Radisic said military courts have tried or were trying 24 soldiers suspected of war crimes in Kosovo http://www.b92.net/archive/e/ Rugova associate shot dead 13:17 KLINA, Tuesday – A senior Kosovo Albanian politician was shot dead this morning.
Ismet Raci, the mayor of Klina and member of Ibrahim Rugova’s ruling Democratic League of Kosovo, was killed as he left his home at around 8am this morning.
UN police spokesman Barry Fletcher said that several shots were fired at Raci.
It is the second murder of Rugova’s party officials in the last six months. Police are still hunting for the killer of Rugova’s advisor Xhemail Mustafa, who died last November.