Serb police held for killing 48 members of one family
in Kosovo

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic in Belgrade
Published: 27 October 2005

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article322547.ece

Nine Serbian policemen have been arrested for killing
48 ethnic Albanian civilians in 1999 in the town of
Suva Reka in Kosovo.

The bodies of the victims, all members of one family,
were found in a mass grave at the police compound of
Batajnica near the Serbian capital, Belgrade, in 2001.
The grave contained the remains of more than 1,000
bodies of ethnic Albanians.

"As far as we know, 48 people were killed in Suva
Reka," a spokesman for the war crimes prosecution
office, Bruno Vekaric, said. "Fourteen were below the
age of 15, one was a pregnant woman aged 24 and one
was a very old woman," he added.

The killings of members of the Berisha family happened
on 26 March 1999, in a pizzeria in Suva Reka, two days
after Nato air raids against Serbia began.

According to the testimony of a survivor, Vjollca
Berisha, Serb policemen rounded up people there,
allegedly searching for weapons. Then they fired into
the crowd with automatic rifles.

Mrs Berisha's two children, aged seven months and two
years, died in the massacre. She and her remaining son
survived, pretending to be dead.

The arrests of the nine policemen yesterday are the
first since the gruesome discovery of the remains more
than 180 miles (300km) from Kosovo.

The executions of possibly around 10,000 ethnic
Albanian civilians, the transporting of bodies and
clandestine burials in Serbia in 1999 was one of the
best-kept secrets of the regime of the former leader
Slobodan Milosevic. Freezer trucks were used in the
operations, aimed at covering up the atrocities
against non-Serbs in the rebellious southern province.

Milosevic loyalists have hampered judicial efforts to
deal with war crimes. This was confirmed by the fact
that six of those detained were on active duty until
their arrest.
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Find out what happened in Kosovo at:
http://www.islamawareness.net/Persecution/Kosovo/