AP News, April 16th, 2007
Macedonia's interior minister watched from a distance as police under his control rampaged through a village in 2001, killing seven ethnic Albanian men and torching and blowing up houses, U.N. prosecutors said Monday.
A video played on the opening day of the war crimes trial of former Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski and a top police official showed what prosecutors described as Boskovski witnessing the attack on the village of Ljuboten from several hundred yards away.
The police operation came during a six-month conflict between Macedonian government forces and ethnic Albanian rebels _ the only violence to affect the country following its peaceful secession from Yugoslavia in 1991.
The video, screened for judges at the U.N. Yugoslav war crimes tribunal, shows Boskovski sheltering behind a wall, with a view across open fields to the rooftops of houses. No people in the village are visible, but gunfire can be heard at times.
Prosecutors played another video they said was shot the day of the attack showing smoke rising from homes in the small farming village. In yet another clip, a man is seen collapsing to the ground as he flees across fields. Prosecutors said the man was fatally shot in the head after fleeing a road block.
Both Boskovski and Johan Tarculovsky have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, wanton destruction and cruel treatment.
The charges are linked to the brutal Aug. 12, 2001, alleged attack by 100 police on Ljuboten, six miles north of the capital, Skopje. The indictment is the only one filed by the tribunal related to the conflict, which arose from ethnic Albanians fighting for more political rights in the majority Slavic nation.
The defendants face a possible punishment of life imprisonment. The policemen who allegedly carried out the killings are not on trial.
U.N. prosecutors have said that Boskovski should be held responsible for the attack because his ministry controlled all police in the country. The video also appeared to demonstrate that he knew the attack was going to happen.
The indictment said police attacked Ljuboten in retaliation for the deaths of eight Macedonian soldiers killed by a land mine two days earlier.
Boskovski's lawyer Edina Residovic made no opening statement but told The Associated Press said the attack was in response to "terrorist" actions and that he "took all necessary and responsible measures."
Tarculovsky is accused of masterminded the atrocities _ handpicking, arming and personally leading the force, according to prosecutors.
"The police unit led by the accused Tarculovsky deliberately chose unarmed civilians, wantonly burned and destroyed many homes without justification and cruelly treated a group of residents, seven of whom were killed," said prosecutor Joanne Motoike.
The attack "clearly had a criminal design as demonstrated by the manner, method and results," she added.
Tarculovsky's lawyers also declined to make an opening statement.
Macedonia, a landlocked country of 2.1 million people, split from Yugoslavia in 1991 with Croatia and Slovenia. Macedonia remained at peace as a brief armed attempt to prevent Slovenia's secession failed and fighting in Croatia killed up to 10,000 people.
In 1999, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians poured into northern Macedonia from neighboring Kosovo to flee former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's troops. Two years later, Macedonia's ethnic Albanians launched their brief insurgency. It ended after a Western-brokered peace deal was signed.
The trial, which adjourned until May 7 after Monday's session, may test the reconciliation between the Macedonian Slavic majority and the ethnic Albanian minority, which comprises about a quarter of the population.
Many in Macedonia regard the two defendants as heroes. On Sunday, hundreds of supporters attended a nationally broadcast service outside the main cathedral in Skopje and demanded a fair trial. The government has pledged moral and financial support to the men and their families.
The Macedonian case is the last indictment issued by the U.N. tribunal, which is under pressure to close its doors by 2010, even though its two most-wanted suspects, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic, remain at large.
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Associated Press Writer Garentina Kraja contributed to this report from Ljuboten, Macedonia.
