Germany to extradite Serb war criminal

Sun Dec 26, 2010

Graves of more than 77 Kosovo Albanians first found buried in a collective grave on Serbian police grounds sit in a row after being re-buried individually July 21, 2001 in Petrovo Selo, eastern Serbia.

Germany has detained a member of a Serbian paramilitary group who allegedly committed war crimes in Kosovo and wants to extradite him to Serbia.

Zoran Obradovic was arrested several weeks ago in Germany and a Frankfurt court ordered his extradition to Serbia.

He has appealed to the German Constitutional Court, a Justice Ministry spokesman announced on Saturday.

Obradovic is a member of the paramilitary Cakali (Jackal) unit, which is accused of killing at least 43 civilians in the village of Cuska, near the western Kosovo town of Pec, on May 14, 1999, AFP reported.

Nine members of the group went on trial in Belgrade on Monday for committing crimes against ethnic Albanian civilians during the 1999 Kosovo conflict.

The indictment accuses the defendants of committing murder, rape, and robbery in an "extremely brutal" way, with "the main goal to spread fear among Albanian civilians in order to force them to leave their homes and flee to Albania."

Serbian forces, under the command of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, waged a violent crackdown on separatist Kosovo Albanians.

After Milosevic was ousted in October 2000, Serbian justice gradually started investigations into the crimes committed during the Kosovo conflict.

About 13,000 people, mostly ethnic Albanians, were killed in the Kosovo conflict.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/157166.html