Serbian court sentences four ex-policemen to prison for war crimes

Jun 18, 2009, 12:52 GMT

Belgrade - A Belgrade court on Thursday sentenced four former Serb policemen to terms of 15 and 20 years in prison for the murder of Albanian civilians in Kosovo in 1999, local media reported.

Four members of former special police unit 'Scorpions' were suspected of opening fire at 19 civilians, mostly women and children, and killing 14 of them in town of Podujevo in north-eastern Kosovo.

Three ex policemen were sentenced to 20 years in prison, while one was sentenced to 15 years.

During the trial, which started last September, the survivors testified that the men tortured the victims and then shot at them.

One member of the special police unit Sasa Cvjetan was already sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2005.

Scorpions are infamous for the murder of six Muslim civilians in Bosnian town Srebrenica during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. The murder was filmed and in 2005 shown at the trial of former Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic in the Hague.

NATO bombed Serbia in 1999 for 78 days to stop the brutal crackdown of Serbian forces on Albanian insurgents in Kosovo. In February 2008, Albanian majority in Kosovo declared independence. Serbia bitterly opposes it.