TWO KOSOVO SERB INDICTEES RELEASED ON BAIL AFTER FOUR YEARS IN DETENTION
BBC Monitoring / BKTV [Transcript] - July 23, 2004

Presenter: Miroslav Vuckovic and Andjelko Kolasinac will defend themselves on bail after spending five years in Kosovska Mitrovica prison, the Supreme Court of Kosovo-Metohija has decided.

Their lawyers Nikola Radosavljevic and Miodrag Brkljac said that most probably nobody would be held accountable for the false accusations levelled against these two Serbs and their alleged responsibility for genocide.

Reporter: Members of Kfor (NATO-led Kosovo Force) and UNMIK (UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo) arrested (Kosovska Mitrovica) Health Centre driver Miroslav Vuckovic in August 1999. In January 2001, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison over genocide, the destruction of three non-Serb villages and murder of two Albanian women. After five years, 42 hearings and three appeals to the Supreme Court of Kosovo, Vuckovic was finally set free.

Vuckovic: My neighbours, ethnic Albanians, they accused me. I once drove them to Belgrade and helped them in every possible way. I helped them with everything involving (the acquisition of) necessary medicines, all other health-related things, everything that was needed, because I am an employee of the Health Centre. Unfortunately, in the end, they used the presence of UNMIK and Kfor to level accusations. I was innocent. But they intended to have me expelled from Kosovska Mitrovica so that they could seize my assets and real estate, my property and my house, which is exactly what they did in the end.

Reporter: The police arrested Orahovac municipal assembly Speaker Andjelko Kolasinac for mass murder, preparing a mass grave, expelling and robbing the non-Serb population - all this according to command responsibility. However, Kolasinac said that on that fateful 17 June 1998, members of the OVK (Kosovo Liberation Army, UCK in Albanian) had attacked Orahovac and abducted and killed around 180 people of whom 40 have still not been found.

Kolasinac: It was a difficult thing, to endure almost four and a half years in prison under such charges. Those were charges that could only be drafted on paper because they could not be derived from real and normal life. However, the faith in my innocence and in the final outcome, as well as hope, enabled me to find the strength to preserve my sanity through all that period, although my health was undermined. I now have a serious disease.

Reporter: The lawyers for Vuckovic and Kolasinac have said that it is extremely difficult for the Serbs to defend themselves before Kosovo courts. The trial councils are made up foreign nationals and ethnic Albanians, and the prosecution, instead of proving guilt, forces Serbs to prove their innocence.

Source: BKTV, Belgrade, in Serbian 1355 gmt 21 Jul 04

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