Former Albanian rebel rejects war crimes charges at trial in Serbia

Associated Press, Nov 18, 2005 7:58 AM

 

BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro-A former Albanian rebel from Kosovo accused of slaying a group of Kosovo Gypsies in 1999, rejected the charges at the start of his war crimes trial on Friday.

 

The case of Anton Lekaj, who admitted to being a member of the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army, is the first here against an ethnic Albanian from Kosovo on charges stemming from the 1998-99 war in the province.

 

Initial hearings were adjourned last month when Lekaj told the special tribunal in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, that he did not recognize its authority and demanded hearings be transferred to Kosovo. Serbia's Supreme Court has since rejected the motion.

 

Lekaj was charged with war crimes related to an incident when, together with four other named and a number of unidentified rebels, he allegedly ambushed a convoy of Gypsies in Kosovo on June 12, 1999.

 

Lekaj and the others allegedly abducted 11 passengers from the convoy, and "tortured and sexually molested them with extreme cruelty." Four of the Gypsies were later executed while the rest were released, according to the indictment.

 

The incident took place as NATO's three-month air campaign against ex-President Slobodan Milosevic was winding down and Serb troops were pulling out of Kosovo. NATO launched the campaign to halt Milosevic's crackdown on Kosovo's independence-seeking ethnic Albanians.

 

The indictment claims Lekaj's group acted under orders of Ramush Haradinaj, a top KLA leader who later became Kosovo's prime minister. Haradinaj has since surrendered to the U.N. war crimes tribunal at The Hague, Netherlands, to answer charges relating to his wartime activities.

 

Additionally, Lekaj, 25, is accused of raping an underage girl and sodomizing a man from the abducted group. He faces a 20-year jail sentence if convicted.

 

Lekaj was arrested during a car theft in August 2004 in Montenegro, Serbia's junior partner in the two-member union that succeeded the former Yugoslavia. Montenegrin authorities later extradited him to Serbia.

 

In court on Friday, Lekaj said he "strongly" rejected all the charges and denied Haradinaj was his commanding officer.

 

"I do not accept that at any time I ... committed rape, hurt or tortured, or killed anyone," Lekaj said.

 

Kosovo is formally part of Serbia, but since the end of the war there, Belgrade has had no authority in the province, which is administered by the United Nations.

 

In Lekaj's hometown of Djakovica, former KLA rebels have staged protests demanding his return to the province.