AFP - European prosecutors have charged two former top Kosovo Albanian guerrillas with war crimes during the 1998-99 conflict, according to a definitive indictment obtained by AFP.
The then commander of the military police for the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) Sabit Geci, 52, and Riza Alija, 50, were charged with "war crimes against (the) civilian population" committed in two KLA camps in neighbouring Albania, the indictment said.
The indictment, seen by AFP in its Albanian version, was issued by EULEX, the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo.
Filed for EULEX by US prosecutor Robert L. Dean, it said the camps in the northern towns of Kukes and Cahan set up by the KLA were "logistic, training and supply" sites.
However, the two accused used them to detain "civilians and persons who were not taking part in the war," it said.
It was not clear when the trial would start.
The war between KLA guerrillas and Serbian forces loyal to Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic ended after the June 1999 NATO air campaign ousted Serbian forces from Kosovo.
Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in February 2008 and has so far been recognised by 72 countries, despite Belgrade's strong opposition.
The 3,000-member EULEX mission was launched in December 2008 to enforce the rule of law in the newly declared country and supervise its police, customs and judiciary.
EULEX has the power to step in and take on cases that the local judiciary and police are unable to handle because of their sensitive nature.
But a EULEX pre-trial judge has already decided that the Kosovo judiciary has jurisdiction over the case even though the alleged war crimes took place in Albania.
The indictment comes at a time when Pristina is still reeling from allegations of KLA atrocities in a report by the Council of Europe's envoy Dick Marty.
Marty linked Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci and other senior KLA commanders to organ trafficking and organised crime.
Thaci has dismissed the allegations as a smear campaign and warned that those "fake patriots" in Kosovo who had cooperated with the Council of Europe envoy in his investigation might face consequences.
"These names are known and they will be made public very quickly," Thaci said in a weekend interview with Kosovo private TV station Klan.
One of the indicted men, Geci is mentioned in Marty's report as suspected of the "killing of a civilian in Kukes who was beaten and shot."
According to Dean's indictment, the two men detained Kosovars who fled the conflict and were suspected of collaborating with the then Serbian regime or had "political views that differed from the KLA."
Geci and Alija were "directly involved in ordering and took part in mistreating persons kept in these detention centres," from the end of March or beginning of April to June 1999, the document alleged.
Civilians "were beaten regularly and were hit with batons and nightsticks (truncheons), kicked, mistreated and verbally abused," it added.
"They were kept in filthy and... unhealthy conditions.... They were denied food, water and medical treatment," the indictment said.
The indictment described an incident in Kukes where two detainees were ordered to put on bulletproof jackets and afterwards "were shot by a firing squad" as a way of torture.
European police arrested Geci in May and Alija in June.
The EULEX prosecution provided testimonies from some 20 detainees who said they has suffered great physical and psychological trauma "because of the conditions they were being kept (in) and as the result of beating and torture."
Their identities have been kept secret, their names coded in a special confidential appendix to the indictment.
In another case, EULEX officials said Friday they would decide in two weeks whether to prosecute seven people suspected of organ-trafficking in Kosovo.
The charges revolve around the Medicus Clinic in Pristina, which was shut down in 2008 after a young Turkish citizen collapsed at the airport, having had a kidney removed for a transplant to an Israeli citizen.
Those facing indictments include a former health secretary who had issued a licence to the clinic involved even though Kosovo law forbids transplants.
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