NETHERLANDS: War crimes trial of Macedonian ex-minister begins

U.N. war crimes prosecutors declared on Monday (April 16) that former Macedonian interior minister Ljube Boskovski bore responsibility for the murder of ethnic Albanians during Macedonia's insurgency in 2001. Boskovski, the last person to be indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), went on trial charged with three counts of violations of the laws or customs of war over an alleged police attack on civilians in a village north of Skopje. He is on trial with police officer Johan Tarculovski, 32, who is accused of leading a police unit that took part in the murder of seven Albanian men, the destruction of at least 14 houses and the abuse of more than 100 villagers at Ljuboten. Both men pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, wanton destruction and cruel treatment in 2005. Prosecutor Dan Saxon told the court said Boskovski should be found criminally responsible aas he failed to punish the perpretators of crimes in the village if Ljuboten. Boskovski's lawyer Edina Residovic said the defence team would show that Boskovski had taken every step to respond in a reasoned manner and the insurgency by ethnic Albanians amounted to a "terrorist attack on Macedonia." The case is the only one at The Hague tribunal concerning Macedonia, which voted for independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. It broke away peacefully but erupted in ethnic violence in 2001. Prosecutors say Boskovski, 46, had control and command of police forces in 2001 and was responsible for their actions. The indictment states police set fire to houses with hand grenades, subjected Albanian villagers to brutal beatings with rifle butts or pieces of burning wood, and carved a large cross on the back of one man with a knife. Prosecutors showed video footage which they said depicted Boskovski close to Ljuboten watching the attack. A commission he later set up to investigate the attack concluded the activities were "indispensable, justified and lawfully undertaken". Boskovski surrendered to the court in March 2005, while Tarculovski was handed over by Macedonia. Boskovski was one of the toughest members of the nationalist government of Orthodox Christian Macedonia during the six-month insurgency by guerrillas of its Muslim Albanian minority. Ethnic Albanian rebels seized control of villages in the north, igniting a conflict that took Macedonia to the brink of civil war. Mediation by NATO and the European Union eventually stopped the fighting, leading to the 2001 Ohrid peace accord which gave greater local autonomy to the 25 percent Albanian minority.

ITN Source | April 19, 2007

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