Kosovo: Former members of the Yugoslav Army sentenced to a total of 56 years in prison for killing Albanian civilians

Seven former members of the Yugoslav Army were sentenced to a total of 56 years in prison for war crimes committed against Albanian civilians in 1999 in Kosovo.

On Wednesday, the High Court in Belgrade handed down a verdict in the Ćuška case, according to which they were convicted of murdering at least 57 Albanians, wounding, looting, expelling and burning houses in Kosovo villages in the vicinity of Peć.

Toplica Miladinović, the former commander of the 177th Military-Territorial Detachment in Peć, was sentenced to 20 years in prison because he knowingly ordered the expulsion of Albanian civilians, knowing at the same time about the murders and robberies committed by his subordinates, the Fonet agency reported.

“Toplica Miladinović was given the maximum possible sentence.”

“However, we also have three sentences that are below the legal minimum,” says Marina Kljajić, a representative of the victims’ family, for the BBC in Serbian.

Apart from Miladinović, Predrag Vuković was sentenced to 13 years, Abdulah Sokić to 12 years, Siniša Mišić to five years, while Lazar Pavlović, Slaviša Kastratović and Boban Bogićević were sentenced to two years each.

Veljko Korićanin and Milan Ivanović were acquitted of the charges.

The proceedings against the former members of the Yugoslav Army, from the detachment known to the public as “Jackals”, began in 2010.

“Waiting for justice after 14 years is as if you didn’t even wait for it.”

“All this leaves a very painful impression, as if those people (victims) were not important,” says Kljajić.

The prosecution and the convicted have a period of one month to file an appeal against the verdict.

Then the Court of Appeal can confirm the decision, change the verdict or open a trial, the lawyer explains.

The BBC in Serbian did not receive a comment from the War Crimes Prosecutor’s Office until the publication of the text.

The crimes were committed during April and May 1999 during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia at the time.

The reason for the intervention, according to NATO’s official explanation, was the prevention of further humanitarian disaster and persecution of Albanians in Kosovo, which was carried out by the Serbian security forces.

The indictment, which includes 118 victims, describes in detail the events of April and May 1999 in four villages in Kosovo – Ćuška, Pavljan, Zahač and Ljubenić.

The defendants entered villages inhabited by Albanian residents, ransacked houses, confiscated valuables, forced civilians to leave their homes on foot or on tractors, and shot at them.

In the last verdict, there were at least 57 of them, because the defendant for the village of Ljubenić was in the meantime declared incompetent, according to the Humanitarian Law Fund.

The first verdict in this case was handed down in 2014, and then the defendants were sentenced to prison terms ranging from two to 20 years.

A year later, the Appellate Court in Belgrade annulled the first-instance verdict and sent the case back for retrial.

The first-instance court was asked to do more to ensure the immediate presence of witnesses, explains Marina Kljajić.

“The main trial was not held for two years, because there was a pandemic and it was not possible to reach those people.

“Serbia does not recognize Kosovo and will not address it through international legal assistance.” We lost precious time trying to reach some people,” he said.

The trial in the case of Ćuška and other Kosovo villages is one of the longest proceedings for war crimes in Serbia.

Marina Kljajić says that the long duration is “characteristic of large-scale cases, where there is a large number of perpetrators and it is about major crimes”.

“Such cases do not end with a first-instance verdict, but are returned for retrial.

“Thus, the trial is diluted, and a large number of the defendants are ultimately not included in the verdict, because some of them have died in the meantime, fled, and some are unfit for trial.” The message is being sent that the Serbian judiciary cannot effectively deal with complex cases,” he says.

The mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Serbia concluded in 2019 that “the long duration of trials (for war crimes) has an unfavorable impact on the rights of all participants in the proceedings: the right of the accused to a trial within a reasonable time; the victim’s right to find out the truth and seek compensation; to the importance of the case for victims who have to wait years for an effective remedy for the suffering they have suffered.”

Due to the long duration of the proceedings, taxpayers’ money is wasted and the time of the defense and the prosecution is wasted, “which is why the prosecution cannot conduct investigations in other cases”, the OSCE stated.

More than 7,000 Albanian civilians died in Kosovo, according to the Humanitarian Law Fund.

Due to war crimes in Kosovo, however, only four proceedings have been conducted so far, of which there are final verdicts for the murder of 78 civilians, including 77 Albanians and one Roma, Kljajic points out.

“It is characteristic of Ćuška and other crimes in Kosovo that they were committed on the territory of the Republic of Serbia, which with the army, police and judiciary existed in Kosovo at the time in full capacity,” he says.

No indictments have been filed for crimes against Albanian civilians since 2014, although the Humanitarian Law Fund filed nine criminal charges during this period.

Sixten years after the declaration of independence, Kosovo was recognized by about 100 countries. However, the exact number is not known.

Pristina cites a figure of 117 countries, and in Belgrade they say that there are far fewer.

Among the countries of the European Union that have not recognized Kosovo are Spain, Slovakia, Cyprus, Greece and Romania, and when it comes to world powers, they are Russia, China, Brazil and India.

Since 2008, Kosovo has become a member of several international organizations, such as the IMF, the World Bank and FIFA, but not the United Nations.