http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7990761.stm
BBC News April 9, 2009 Kosovo civilian abuses revealed By Nick Thorpe Budapest - The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) abducted civilians in Kosovo who were then mistreated and in some cases killed, a BBC investigation has found. Sources told the BBC that Kosovo Serbs, ethnic Albanians and gypsies [Roma] were among an estimated 2,000 who went missing. This took place both during and after the war in Kosovo, which ended in June 1999. Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, the former KLA political director, has rejected the allegations. .... Testimony The BBC News investigation also studies claims that some of those held in Albania were killed for their organs, and that physical evidence gathered by UN investigators in Albania was destroyed by the International War Crimes Tribunal. A former prisoner of the KLA, an ethnic Albanian from Kosovo who was held in a KLA prison in Kukes, northern Albania, agreed to speak to us on condition of anonymity. His family are terrified for his life. "They ill-treated people in the corridor," he says. "They also came into the rooms in groups of five or six to question us. And they used knives, guns, and automatic rifles." His testimony confirms that people of different ethnic backgrounds were kept there, including Serbs. He told the BBC: "When a person is mistreated... he cries out 'oh mother' in his own language. "The nights were very quiet, so you could hear them crying out... while they were being beaten, or afterwards." Sources in Kukes suggest that up to 18 prisoners held at the camp were killed. Missing Just across the border, in Prizren, in western Kosovo, Brankica Antic lights a candle for her husband Zlatko. A Kosovo Serb, she says he was abducted in July 1999 in Prizren by men in KLA uniforms - six weeks after the end of the war, when Nato-led peacekeepers were well established. At the Monastery of the Holy Archangel near Prizren, candles are lit for loved ones according to the Serbian Orthodox tradition. Candles are lit either on the top shelf for the living, or the lower, for the dead. Brankica still lights her candles for Zlatko on the top. "We always light candles for their health and well-being, and we will continue to do so unless and until their bodies are found, and we know for a fact that they are gone," she says. Zlatko is one of about 400 Kosovo Serbs who were abducted at the end of the war, and are still missing, according to Family Associations of the Missing in Serbia. Around 150 are still missing from the war period. .... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/04/09/BBC-Kosovo-army-tortured-civilians/UP I-23191239278336/ United Press International April 9, 2009 BBC: Kosovo army tortured civilians LONDON - A former camp prisoner alleged the Kosovo Liberation Army abducted and tortured civilians, and killed some of them in the late 1990s, the BBC reported. An ethnic Albanian, the former prisoner of the camp at Kukes, in northeastern Albania close to the border with Kosovo, at the time Serbia's province, revealed his claims to the BBC under condition he remained unidentified. The BBC on its Web site Thursday quoted sources as saying the Kosovo ethnic Albanian liberation army kidnapped civilian Kosovo Serbs, Romanies and ethnic Albanians and maltreated them in the Kukes camp. About 2,000 civilians were missing before and after an armed conflict in Kosovo, which ended in June 1999. A number of the abducted people taken to Albania were killed and allegedly their body organs were sold on the black market. At least 18 people were killed in the Kukes camp, the BBC said. .... Serbian News Network - SNN [email protected] http://www.antic.org/
