Kosovo charges 35 Serb ex-police over 1998 massacre

Kosovo prosecutors brought charges Friday against 35 former Serbian police over the massacre of dozens of members of an ethnic Albanian guerilla leader's family at the start of the 1990s war.

Around 60 people, mostly relatives of Adem Jashari, were killed along with him when Serbian forces launched an assault on the founding commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in March 1998.

The massacre came at the end of a siege by Serbian special police and military forces of the Jashari family compound in the village of Prekaz in Kosovo's northwest.

During the three-day siege, Serbian troops, backed by armoured vehicles and artillery, kept the compound sealed off until they managed to overrun it.

Those killed included 20 of Jashari's close family members, other relatives and neighbours, and tens of women and children.

Announcing the charges, chief special prosecutor Blerim Isufaj called it the "first indictment related to the killing of civilians in the Jashari neighbourhood in Prekaz".

"It is now up to the court to evaluate the indictment and evidence presented in it," Isufaj told a news conference.

The prosecutors said there was evidence that those accused held high command positions within Serbian police special units.

The court hearings will be conducted in absentia as the authorities do not have access to the suspects.

The lead prosecutor in the case, Valdet Gashi, identified the leader of the attack as Milorad Ulemek, also known as Legija, former head of a police commando unit.

Ulemek is serving two 40-year jail terms in Serbia for masterminding the murder of Serbian reformist prime minister Zoran Djindjic in 2003 and former president Ivan Stambolic in 2000.

The massacre in Prekaz was a turning point in the 1998-1999 war between Kosovo's majority ethnic independence-seeking Albanians and Belgrade troops.

It outraged the West, radicalising ethnic Albanians and serving as a major catalyst for the 1998-1999 conflict.

The war claimed more than 13,000 lives and ended after a US-led NATO bombing campaign.

Kosovo declared independence in 2008, but Serbia still does not recognise the move.