Part of the judicial process of the Tribunal for the Investigation of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991 (CTY public trial with confidential annexes. Prosecutor against Vlastimir Gjorgjevic, February 23 2011. Paragraphs 1163-1214).) The text was published in Kohan Ditore in September 2016.
Serbian paramilitary forces entered the town of Vushtrri in northern Kosovo at the end of March 1999. The following testimony, based on what witnesses saw with their own eyes, was brought before the Hague Tribunal in the case of the 2011 trial of Vlastimir Gjorgjevic and highlights the dark nature of the events that took place there and in the surrounding area
1. Serbian forces, some in blue camouflage uniforms and others in green military uniforms, arrived on March 27, 1999 at a school in the town of Vushtrri. Witness Sabit Kadriu saw two Serbs dressed in civilian clothes entering a house in front of the school. After a while he saw that house and the neighboring house were engulfed in flames. The witness had also seen Serbian forces in green camouflage uniforms around the burning houses.
2. On the same day in the evening, part of the old bazaar of Vushtrri and the center of the city were burned. The minaret of a seventeenth-century mosque located in the center of the city had burned and collapsed. The accompanying facilities that were located near the mosque were also burned.
Screams and slamming doors were heard across town. On March 28, 1999, in the morning, shots were heard in the city. On the morning of March 29, 1999, three or four bodies were found on a road near the old Vushtrri bridge.
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3. Evidence confirms that during that time, blue camouflage uniforms were used by the police and that green camouflage uniforms were worn by Yugoslav army soldiers and MUP PJP. The presence of MUP and Yugoslav army forces in the town of Vushtrri was supported through an order issued by the military command of the area and dated March 27, 1999, sending 54 members of the military detachment of Pristina to the town of Vushtrri.
With this order, units of the Yugoslav army were tasked to act in coordination with the forces of the MUP for establishing control in the vicinity of Vushtrri. Another document hints at the presence of two platoons of the third company of the PJP in the municipality of Vushtrri then.
4. On April 1, 1999, around eight forty in the morning, citizens in the town of Vushtrri heard voices of people shouting and ordering people to leave their homes. These voices were heard by those policemen wearing blue camouflage uniforms. Residents were told to go to the cemetery. Three of the policemen were ordering the citizens to hurry up as soon as possible, and Sabit Kadriu recognized one of the policemen as Dragan Petrović, commander of the Vushtrri police station. He also saw a policeman beating a citizen with a baton as he refused to leave the house.
5. When the citizens of the town of Vushtrri arrived at the cemetery, there was no member of the Serbian forces there. However, three buses of the private company, "Hajra" were waiting, as they had been instructed by the police. A driver told them that the police had ordered him to take them to the border with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
Most of the citizens who had gathered at the city cemetery boarded the buses, but due to the lack of space, some of them were forced to walk behind the means of transport. Sabit Kadriu had not boarded the bus and managed to reach the house of the KLA commander in Higher Studies. This house was full of people who had moved from the surrounding villages. On April 2, 1999, Sabit Kadriu moved to Ceceli, which was under the control of the KLA.
Lower Sfaracak
6. The village of Sfaraçak i Poshthem lies in the plain of the surroundings of Vushtrri. The neighboring village, Upper Sfaraçak, lies on the higher ground north of Lower Sfaraçak. In March 1999, Lower Sfaraçak had eighty Albanian houses and about ten Serb houses. And the Upper Sfaracak is seen completely by the eyes of the Lower Sfaracak.
7. The forces of the Yugoslav army occupied the positions in March 1999 in the neighborhood of Llapzovic in the village of Samadraxhe and in the hills of Upper Sfaraçak under the side of Lower Study.
8. All Serbian families left on March 27, 1999 from Lower Sfaraçak towards the village of Nedakoc. The next day, Fedrije Xhafa, an Albanian resident of Lower Sfaraçak, heard powerful gunshots and saw that the houses of the Upper Sfaraçak village were burning. Fearing the events that could follow and their safety, all residents, with a few exceptions, of Lower Sfaraçak, left their homes in a convoy.
The convoy passed through the village of Dumnica e Epërme and Samadraxë, before stopping in Vesekoc. Fedrije Xhafa's father, mother-in-law and cousin, who had stayed in the village of Sfaraçak i Poshthem, were forced to leave the village immediately after the convoy because of the danger posed to the Kosovo Albanians by sniper fire coming from the direction of the village. Nedakoc. This time the Albanian families were not allowed to return to their homes.
9. At the end of the war, when the inhabitants of Lower Sfaraçak returned to their homes, they saw that the houses belonging to the Albanian families had been burned, but not those of the Serbian families, which were not affected at all.
The Lower Study and Slokaci
10. Studime e Poshtme village is divided into two neighborhoods of Lower Mehalla and Upper Mehalla. Mehalla e Eperme is also known as Rashicë. It lies in the coastal part of the Lower Study. Serbian forces were present on March 28 and 29, 1999 in Lower Sfaracak and Rashicë.
The Lower Study began to be shelled by Serbian grenades and other weapons, forcing the local population into the surrounding hills. The Serbian forces were believed on March 29, 1999 to be members of the local police of Vushtrri, who had come to Lower Studies and told the residents to leave the village for fifteen minutes or face unknown consequences.
The villagers then fled to the hills surrounding the village. The lower part of the Lower Study was attacked with gunfire, while Rashica was being shelled by the tanks and heavy artillery of the Yugoslav army. During the operation, the houses in the village were burned. A witness in the forest had seen Serbian forces stationed at Lower Studies, which had not moved for several days.
11. Between April 7 and 10, 1999, Shukri Gërxaliu was at his home in Lower Studies. Around April 1999, XNUMX, he heard that Serbian forces were coming to pick him up. Fearing for his safety, he hid in the bushes behind his house. While he was hiding in the bushes, he heard that the Serbian forces were asking him in Albanian and Serbian to tell them where the man was.
The woman had later told him that they were Serbian police officers. Later he saw that Izet Bunjaku's house was burning from the flames. After this incident, Bunjaku took his family and went to the KLA-controlled area in the surrounding mountains. On the way, while they were walking through the stream that flowed along the road in the direction of the Lower Study, his family was targeted by firecrackers, but fortunately they were not shot.
When they came out to the area of Rashica, the family was also shelled by the tanks of the Yugoslav army. While the family was arriving at a two- to three-hundred-meter strip of land that stretched between the KLA and the Serb-controlled territory between the Lower Study and the Upper Study, they were picked up by people with horses and carts, and taken to Sllakoc, where the KLA forces were located.
Study Massacre
One of the witnesses saw Serbian forces approaching a tractor and repeatedly demanding money from the tractor driver. Then he saw how the police pulled the driver out of the tractor. The father of the tractor driver, Sherif Bunjaku, begged them not to kill his son. However, a barrage of automatic fire followed and the driver was killed. The driver had no weapon. The courtroom confirmed that the driver was Hysni Bunjaku, an Albanian from Kosovo, whose name is on the list below and who was 21 years old when he was killed. Members of the police force were heard saying that they had killed fifty people and that they would not stop until the number reached 100.
12. Until the end of April 1999, the KLA resisted the Serbian forces in the vicinity of Vushtrri. However, around April 28, 1999, Serbian forces that were successfully advancing against KLA positions in the mountains, towards Mitrovica, took control of Bajgora, and established a camp in Bare. A major offensive was launched by Serbian forces from the direction of Podujeva and Serbia. On May 1, 1999, Serbian forces advanced on Vesekoc.
13. Around April 28, 1999, an advance of Serbian forces in the area caused the displacement of Kosovo Albanians, who were taking refuge in the mountains in the region of Shala, to move towards Samadrexha, Sllakoc and Cecelia.
14. An order dated 15 April 1999 from the Joint Command hinted that the Pristina Corps of the Yugoslav Army was then sent to support the MUP troops in "breaking and destroying the KLA forces in the Shala Area, including Samadrexha and Cecelia.
15. On May 1, 1999, Serbian forces advanced to Vesekoc, a village located in the northeastern part of Vushtrri Municipality. In the evening of the same day, Serbian forces started shelling Vesekoc.
16. That day, in the village of Sllakoc, which lies south of Vesekoc, the KLA was resisting the advance of Serbian forces coming from the village of Melenicë and the Llapi area. The KLA informed the residents of Sllakoc that they were running out of ammunition to defend Sllakoc and told them to go to the town of Vushtrri. At the same time, the KLA moved from Slakoc to the east and Serbian forces started shelling Slakoc.
17. On May 2, 1999, somewhere around 11 o'clock in the day, Sllakoc was being shelled with increased intensity. Houses were burning and machine guns were being fired. Immediately, Serbian infantry forces entered Sllakoc. Around one o'clock in the afternoon, more than thirty thousand Kosovo Albanians left Sllakoc with horses and cars.
18. The convoy first traveled towards Cecelia before continuing towards the Upper Study, the Lower Study and the city of Vushtrri. The road between Sllakoc and Upper Study was about seven kilometers long. Between Cecelia and Upper Studime, the column was shelled by the Yugoslav Army and the shots coming from Sllakoc, Rashica neighborhood in Lower Studime, Upper Sfaraçak and from the north. Around three o'clock in the afternoon, shelling and machine gun fire forced the convoy to stop at Higher Studies. At least two people were injured by the shots.
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19. Between four and five in the afternoon of the same day, the convoy started moving again. However, machine gun fire could also be heard as the convoy moved along with occasional obstacles. Around six o'clock in the afternoon, the convoy had stopped at a location about three kilometers behind the Upper Study and about one kilometer before arriving at the Lower Study. The Serbian forces had started enforcing the curfew from four o'clock in the afternoon in the district. As night fell, houses in Upper Studies were seen burning and machine gun fire was heard coming from that village.
20. Around five o'clock in the afternoon, Serbian forces arrived at the convoy from the northern side with APCs and pinzgauers. The members were in green camouflage uniforms, blue camouflage uniforms and black uniforms. Some of them even had scarves on their heads. There were members with painted faces. Some of them had masks covering their faces, only with holes for eyes and mouths. The masks extended to the chest. They were plastic masks. They had colored eyebrows and mustaches. Serbian forces have been described as paramilitary.
There is further evidence that the paramilitary forces wore black uniforms and headscarves, and wore masks or painted faces. While the depiction of Serbian forces in black uniforms is consistent with those of paramilitary forces, the presence of blue and green camouflage uniforms confirms, according to the courtroom findings, that there were also members of the MUP and the Yugoslav Army in the mixed Serbian forces. , who had come to the column.
21. Serbian forces demanded money from people in the convoy and threatened to rape a witness's wife if money was not given. The witness's wife was given some money. The friend of the witness, Halil Basholli, was asked about his identity and where he was from. He was then brutally beaten by Serbian forces with a rifle, wooden sticks and police batons. Halil Basholli was seriously injured as a result of the beating.
22. Another group of armed Serb men, identified as policemen, driving Jeeps and APCs, arrived at the heart of the IDP column that had remained on the Lower Study road. The police came from the direction of the Rashica neighborhood in Higher Studies. They pushed a car into a ravine after it was on the road. Then they got out of their cars and demanded money from the people in the convoy, shooting the men who did not give money.
One of the witnesses saw Serbian forces approaching a tractor and repeatedly demanding money from the tractor driver. Then he saw how the police pulled the driver out of the tractor. The father of the tractor driver, Sherif Bunjaku, begged them not to kill his son. However, a barrage of automatic fire followed and the driver was killed. The driver had no weapon. The courtroom confirmed that the driver was Hysni Bunjaku, an Albanian from Kosovo, whose name is on the list below and who was 21 years old when he was killed. Members of the police force were heard saying that they had killed fifty people and that they would not stop until the number reached 100.
23. Around the same time, Shukri Gërxaliu, who was traveling in the convoy, heard the men speaking Serbian as they approached the tractor of Haki Gërxaliu and his family, which was right behind Shukri Gërxaliu's trailer. Haki Gërxaliu got off the tractor and was shot immediately. Fearing that they would kill him, Shukri Gërxaliu jumped from the trailer to escape. While he was running away, he fell on Haki Gërxhaliu's body, which was on the ground near his tractor. He was dead. Many members of Gërxhaliu's family, who were in the convoy, were killed that night, although the evidence does not allow them to be identified separately. The deportees' tractors were thrown into the river or burned by members of the Serbian forces.
24. Later that night, around nine o'clock in the evening, three men of the Serbian forces in uniforms and masks, who also had automatic weapons with them, arrived from the direction of the Higher Study and went to another part of the same convoy. They ordered the outcasts to go in the direction of the Lower Study. As the convoy continued on its way, members of the Serbian forces shone a bright light at a man in the convoy. Machine gun shots were immediately heard and it was seen that the body of a killed Buri fell to the ground. The men who had shot the man were standing next to the dead body. The murdered man was not armed.
25. After nine o'clock in the evening, the convoy reached a branch road. One of the roads led in the direction of Vushtrri, the other in the direction of Lower Study. Serbian forces directed the deportees to go towards Vushtrri. All at once, shells fell about 50 meters away from the column and actually split the column in two. While most of the column stayed in Studime Te Poshtme, a smaller part with about a thousand people was ordered by the Serbian forces to go towards Vushtrri. This part of the convoy arrived at the Agricultural Cooperative in Vushtrri around ten o'clock at night.
26. Later that night, gunshots were heard in the convoy. Combined Serbian forces, coming from the Serbian machine camouflaged with branches, surrounded the column. Some members of the Serbian forces had blue camouflage uniforms, others black uniforms and a third of them had green camouflage uniforms.
The killing of civilians in the column of deportees
Later, on the same day, it was seen by the convoy that the village of Studime e Eperme was on fire. Around two o'clock in the morning on May 3, 1999, Serbian forces killed about 105 people traveling in a convoy on Gryka e Studimes road, in the main part of the convoy, which was still being pursued by Serbian forces. A part that had arrived from the Agricultural Cooperative in Vushtrri was added to this column
27. People in the convoy had been ordered to clear the road and allow police and military units to pass. Immediately, Serbian policemen fired into the air. They cursed and shouted insults in the Serbian language at the people in the convoy. They checked the identification document of a man named Ismet and accused him of being a KLA fighter. There is evidence that shows that Ismet was a KLA soldier in the past, but not at the time he was in the convoy. He was not armed. Ismet was beaten with fists and threatened to kill him until he gave money. The police were given money after Ismet's release.
28. A member of the Serbian forces wearing a bulletproof vest over a blue camouflage uniform, who, according to the Court's findings, was a policeman, pushed Ferdije Xhafa's brother, Jetish, off the tractor and beat him with a thick wooden stick. The policeman then threatened to kill Jetish Xhafa if he did not give him money. A woman had given the police her gold and they released Jetish.
29. Immediately after this incident, around half past eleven, another group of men arrived at Jetish Xhafa's tractor. The men had blue camouflage uniforms and two of them had black gloves, black masks with eye and mouth holes in blue camouflage uniforms. The uniforms confirm the Court's findings that they were policemen. One of the policemen pointed the machine gun in the direction of Ferdija Xhafa's mother. At the same time, Jetishi was dragged near a road towards the Lower Study. A policeman put the barrel of his rifle to Jetish's head. A single crack was heard and the Jetish fell to the ground.
The policemen then dragged Ferdija's father to the place where Jetishi had fallen. She heard shots. A second after the shots, she heard her father, Miran Xhafa (71 years old), screaming from his wounds. She heard the third crack and saw her father fall to the ground. It wasn't long before he heard another shot. Not until after the war did she realize that Jetishi had survived and that only her father had been killed. None of them were armed.
30. During the time of these developments, the family of Ferdije Xhafa, still in the convoy, was ordered by the Serbian forces to start moving. The convoy was on the road again. There was no one left who could drive the tractor. Lavdim, who was thirteen years old and did not know how to drive, had tried to start the tractor, but was beaten with a rifle butt by a policeman when he failed to start the tractor. After a while, Lavdimi managed to start the tractor and drove it about a hundred meters, but then stopped it on the side of the road. The family hid behind the tractor and then sent one of its members, Ismet, to Samadraxha to tell the KLA forces what had happened to the convoy.
Other Serbian forces in blue camouflage uniforms returned to the tractor and ordered the family to move with the rest of the convoy. The family left the tractor, since there was no driver, and continued on foot. As he passed and continued his journey, the police ordered the people in the convoy to shout "KLA", "Slobo" and "Drazha". On the road, a witness had seen with his own eyes seven or eight dead bodies. Among them he recognized the body of his cousin Veli Xhafa, who was lying dead on his tractor. The witness had also seen injured people, including women and children, on the way of the convoy. One of them, a boy, was shot by a policeman.
31. Shukri Gërxaliu, who was in another part of the convoy, saw ten cars carrying soldiers and policemen, coming from the direction of Vushtrri, and crossing the road from the Lower Study to the Upper Study. There were army cars and three regular police cars. One of those in them, a Yugoslav army soldier, was heard saying that everything had been "cleaned".
Police cars and soldiers continued on the road and the convoy resumed its journey. Dead bodies were seen on the side of the road as the convoy continued. One of the witnesses left the column and returned to Higher Studies. There he saw KLA soldiers burying the dead. Most of them had been killed at close range. Most of the victims were men, but there were also some women and children. A KLA soldier showed the witness a list of 97 people killed and asked him if he knew them. The name of the witness was written incorrectly on the list and was erased.
32. The defense has challenged the credibility of Shukri Gërxhali, emphasizing that in the previous testimony before the Tribunal, he had not mentioned the presence of policemen in cars that came from Vushtrri. The Court Chamber remembers that Gërxhaliu had given additional evidence adding that part as well, confirming that the soldiers and policemen were in police and military cars and that they came from the direction of the city of Vushtrri.
The court does not consider that this addition undermines Gërxhaliu's credibility. Although Gërxaliu was a member of the KLA at the time of the event alleged in the indictment, his testimony is considered valid. The courtroom is impressed with the witness and considers that he has given strong and reliable testimony about the events in this municipality.
33. Later, on the same day, it was seen by the convoy that the village of Studime e Eperme was on fire. Around two o'clock in the morning on May 3, 1999, Serbian forces killed about 105 people traveling in a convoy on Gryka e Studimes road, in the main part of the convoy, which was still being pursued by Serbian forces. A part that had arrived from the Agricultural Cooperative in Vushtrri was added to this column.
34. The indictment also points out that during the night of May 1999 and 105, 104, Serbian forces killed about XNUMX people who were traveling in the convoy on the Gryka e Studimes road in the direction of Vushtrri. Here we have the list with the names of XNUMX victims.
35. As discussed above, the eyewitness testimony proves that the four victims listed in the indictment, Hysni Bunjaku, Haki Gërxaliu, Miran Xhafa and Veli Xhafa, were killed by Serbian forces on the night of May 1999 and XNUMX, XNUMX on their way to the city of Vushtrri. The evidence for the murder of Haki Gërxhaliu, Miran Xhafa and Veli Xhafa is also supported by the findings of French forensic experts, who later exhumed and examined the bodies.
Forensic reports point out that they were killed violently, from bullet wounds to the head. The body of Hysni Bunjak was never found by the forensic team. However, based on the testimony of the eyewitness, the Chamber is convinced that he was shot and killed in the convoy by Serbian forces on the night of the 1999nd and XNUMXrd of May XNUMX. Based on the testimony of the witness, the Chamber believes that at the time of the killing, the victims were traveling in the column with deportees and that they were surrounded by Serbian forces. The victims had not taken an active part in the hostilities. The Chamber is pleased to have established that the victims were Kosovo Albanians.
36. With respect to the remaining men listed in the first part of the indictment, no evidence was offered as to the circumstances of their deaths. The prosecution wants to rely on the testimony of Sabit Kadri, head of the Commission for War Crimes in Vushtrri. It is his testimony based on interviews conducted with family members of the victims and eyewitnesses, based on which he has produced a list of the names of 104 victims who are believed to have been killed on the night of May 2 and 3, 1999 at various locations in Municipality of Vushtrri.
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Kadri's list is the same as the one previously provided in the indictment. It is the testimony of Sabi Kadri that shows that the dead bodies of these 104 people were found on May 3, 1999 and were buried in the cemetery in Eperme Studies.
37. Taking into consideration that at that time there was continuous fighting between the KLA and the Serbian forces in the Municipality of Vushtrri, the Chamber cannot exclude the possibility that some of these men buried in the cemetery of the Upper Study may have been killed while participating in the fighting and that their deaths may not have been caused by Serbian forces. The Chamber expresses its regret that the remaining persons listed in Sabit Kadri's list were killed in the manner described above.
