Supreme Court upholds 13-year prison sentence
for Kosovo Albanian
The Associated Press - April 6, 2007 Friday 1:15 AM GMT
BELGRADE Serbia - Serbia's Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a 13-year prison
sentence for a former ethnic Albanian fighter convicted of taking part in the
torture and rape of civilians at the end of the 1998-99 war in Kosovo province.
The defense appealed for Anton Lekaj, 26, to be sent back to Kosovo a United
Nations and NATO protectorate since 1999. But the court confirmed an earlier
verdict that found him guilty of war crimes.
Lekaj was a member of the Kosovo Liberation Army which took up arms to separate
Kosovo from Serbia. NATO's 1999 intervention in the conflict forced Serb
government forces to halt their crackdown on the separatists and pull out of the
province.
As Serbs were retreating in June 1999, Lekaj ambushed a wedding party of local
Gypsies, an ethnic community that mostly tried to stay out of the Serb-Albanian
fighting but was often targeted by Kosovo Albanians for loyalty to the Serbs.
Lekaj and several other KLA members abducted at least 11 Gypsies, raped a girl,
sexually abused a man and severely beat the rest of the group for several days
in a basement of a deserted hotel in southwestern Kosovo, according to the
verdict.
Four of those abducted were later executed by Lekaj and his fellow-rebels.
Lekaj denied any wrongdoing and said he did not recognize the Serbian court.
Most Kosovo Albanians sought here for insurgency-related crimes remain beyond
the reach of Serbia's judiciary because the province has been under U.N. and
NATO control. Lekaj, however, was arrested during a car theft in neighboring
Montenegro in 2004 and was later extradited to the Serbian capital Belgrade.
Kosovo's future status is currently under discussion at the U.N. Security
Council. A U.N. envoy has proposed supervised independence for the province, a
plan rejected by Serbia.
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