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Post by Novi Pazar on Jul 9, 2009 7:24:41 GMT -5
Indictment filed against KLA group
International prosecutor Robert Dean has accused members of the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army's Lapska group of illegally imprisoning and torturing fellow Albanian civilians.
(KosovoCompromise Staff) Thursday, July 09, 2009
The indictment, which was read out at today's hearing, includes the name of former commander of the KLA Lap operative zone and Kosovo MP Rustem Mustafi.
Mustafi, aka Commander Remi, is also the vice president of the Democratic Party of Kosovo, led by the province's prime minister, Hashim Thaci.
Also featuring on the indictment are former KLA Military Police Commander for Lap Nazif Mehmeti and KLA intelligence chief in Lap Latif Gashi.
In the new indictment, the KLA members are not accused of murder, as they were in the first court case.
In the initial trial, which the Kosovo Supreme Court subsequently quashed, Mustafa was sentenced to 17 years in prison while Gashi and Mehmeti were given ten and 13 years in prison respectively.
Naim Kdriu was also convicted at the original trial, though he was later killed in a traffic accident in 2003.
On Tuesday, lawyers for the defense called for the case to be dropped. The trial has sparked a media frenzy in Kosovo, and the courtroom was packed today with supporters and family members of the accused.
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Post by leshte on Jul 10, 2009 23:19:02 GMT -5
The EULEX judge has cleared them of those charges by the way. Just trying to keep you current.
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Fender
Commanding Moderator
Hardarse
Posts: 2,653
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Post by Fender on Jul 14, 2009 8:06:40 GMT -5
Commander Remi
Source: Reagan.com Published: 10/04/99 Author: Max Sinclair
Commander Remi - The Man Who Insults Gen. Jackson and Gets Away With It
"Murders occur at a frightening rate"
What Happened in Kosovo?
Since General Jackson's military occupation began on June 12th it has become increasingly clear that something is going terribly wrong inside Kosovo and Metohija.
Murders occur at a frightening rate. Little old ladies get strangled while taking a bath. Young girls are kidnaped and sent to European brothels. Children get blown up by unexploded cluster bombs. Whole residential streets are looted, then torched. Nuns are raped. More than a dozen Farmers tending their crops get their throats slit by thugs dressed in British army uniforms.
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
We were told by Washington that the tyrant Milosevic and his evil henchman must be kicked out of Kosovo to stop hundreds of thousands from being killed. We were told by Washington that NATO occupation would bring peace and stability to Kosovo. We were told by Washington that the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) represented the desires of 99.95% of the people.
Somehow what we were told by Washington and the reality unfolding in Kosovo doesn't appear to jive. Why is that? Why is the situation so chaotic in Kosovo? Why have things got worse since the 'NATO liberation'?
Perhaps these questions can be answered by taking an in depth look at the UCK. This is the very same UCK whose leaders' Madeline Albright has feted in Paris, Washington, and now in Pristina. Numerous reports have indicated the US has secretly armed and advised the UCK. One such leader is Commander Remi.
This article presents information about Remi and how he appears to have spent most of his time in killing fellow Albanians who disagreed with his extremist position.
Commander Remi
Rrustem Mustafa is a leading UCK commander. Using the nom de guerre Commander Remi, he was responsible for UCK actions in the so-called Llap operational zone. This vital zone includes Pristina, the strategic highway linking Kosovo with Serbia, and the market town of Podujevo. At 27, Remi had a hard line reputation and a flair for media posturing. He frequently gave interviews to naive reporters driving up for the afternoon from Pristina. His political views are therefore quite well known. What is not as quite well known are the methods he used to carry out his rigid political programme.
Remi seems to have believed that any person would not support the UCK was a traitor and deserved to be treated that way. Remi rejected the Rambouillet Peace agreement signed by the UCK leadership describing it as a betrayal by 'business patriots' and criticized the 'fraud' and 'manipulation' which went into the agreement. (source Reuters Tuesday March 16 12:31 PM ET ; Yugoslav Army Advances: By Sean Maguire) The day to day work of leading Remi's fighters appears to have been the responsibility of Kadri Kastrati, deputy commander of the Llap zone.
Kastrati was a 39 year old seasoned mercenary from the Croatia Army who spent the early 1990's with the paramilitary group "Vangas" ethnically cleansing the Dalmatian coast from Zadar to Dubrovnik. (source: Vecernji List (Zagreb) 9 March 1999; Some 300 Former Croatian Army Members Fighting in Kosovo ; by Sonja Hodak).
Remi, the 20 something failed law student and Karrati, the unemployed paramilitary from Croatia organized a focused campaign against moderate Albanians within their zone beginning with the kidnapping of Hajif Hoti on December 1st , 1999.
Remi's Campaign Against Moderate Albanians
The fifty-six year old Hajif Hoti, was kidnaped by a group of people wearing UCK uniforms near Podujevo and never heard from again. Hoti's case is typical of what happened to moderate Albanian villagers in Remi's zone. They go about trying to avoid all conflict and find themselves disappeared (source Pristina Media Center 3.December)
Moderate villagers were not the only victims of Remi's wrath. Two days later on the 3rd of December, Remi's fighter's assassinated Hizri Tala and his two companions; the journalist Afrim Malici, and the student Iljir Durmisi when their car was machine gunned in Pristina's University district. Albanians who attended multi-ethnic Yugoslav schools were by definition traitors becuase they refused to attend UCK run nationalist schools. (source Pristina Media Center)
The next day, Remi ordered two of his fighters to sneak into the Pristina hospital for unknown reasons. When confronted with a request to show identification inside a hospital corridor, Remi's fighter's opened fire wounding 4 Albanians: Semsija Ceri, Dzevat Ceri, Jeton Muljaj, and Shuban Beahimaj. There are conflicting stories about what happened next. One version states that the female UCK threw a grenade forgetting to pull the pin. Her UCK companion then shot her while berating her for her incompetence. (numerous sources )
Remi's attacks against Albanians seemed to quiet down until 10:30 on the night of 23rd of December when his fighters shot up the "Melisa" cafe in Kosovska Mitrovica killing 24 year old Naser Haziri and wounding 20 year old Ljulzim Ademi. Ademi was an Albanian member of the local Yugoslav police and therefore a target for assassination by Remi. (source Pristina Media Center 23.December)
Moderate Albanian intellectual leaders were a particular target of Remi. For example, on the 9th of January at 4:00 in the afternoon Enver Maloku was shot and fatally wounded while stepping out of his car in front of his home in Prishtina. Maloku was a leading member of the Albanian nationalist political party known as the LDK as well as a prominent publisher. The LDK was the chief political rival of the UCK. Maloku's crime in Remi's eyes was that he advocated a peaceful struggle for independence. Remi considered that traitorous and therefore assassinated Maloku. (Sources Kosovo Information Service, Pristina Media Center 10. January)
Even driving a cab using Yugoslav registration was enough to earn a guilty verdict from Commander Remi. On the morning of January 21s, Fatmir Sheqiri, 21, was found killed at Livaxhë, on the Prishtina - Ferizaj roadway. The body of Fatmir was found in the trunk of his car. It seems he was shot with two bullets on the neck, whereas signs of violence were all about his body, according to reports issued by the Pristina Association of Taxi Drivers. Fatmir was guilty of two crimes the first was working within the Yugoslav system. The second was to be a 21 year old Albanian and not fighting with the UCK under Commander Remi. (Source Kosovo Information Service 22.Jan)
Commander Remi seemed to specialize in the bombing of cafes which were frequented by ethnically mixed groups of youth. At 8:45pm on January 29th, Remi's fighters threw a Chinese made hand grenade into the downtown Pristina "Galerija" Cafe wounding Gordana Miladinovic, Milovan Vujosevic, Milenko Stojanovic, his sister Mirjana Stojanovic, Miodrag Markovic and Alma Beljulji, while Nikola Gavrilovic was lightly wounded. The Albanian girl, Alma Beljuli, was 21 years old and presumably attacked because she was mixing with Serbians.
Another middle aged Albanian writer was shot and wounded by Remi at the end of January. Selman Konjusha (50), a Pristina writer, was shot in the entrance to his flat in downtown Pristina. Konjusha was shot twice - in the chest and his kidneys - and was taken to the Yugoslav run Pristina surgery clinic in a critical condition. When operated upon, he had one of his kidneys removed. (Source Kosovo Information Center)
Two days after the "Galerija" grenade attack, Remi's fighters struck yet again. This time they attacked two cafes frequented by young Albanians who were more interested in drinking Fantas and flirting with girls than joining the UCK extremists shivering in the hills. At 10:00pm a bomb was tossed in the courtyard of the "Gëzimi II" cafe in downtown Pristina. Luckily it caused no injuries and only light damage. The Albanian proprietor, Rrahman Ismaili may also have gotten a little warning from Remi to pay his UCK taxes on time.
Twenty minutes later, an Albanian student was killed, and six other young Albanians were wounded at 10:20pm on Sunday when a bomb was hurled in the "Beqa" grill bar in Vellusha street in downtown Pristina, The killed university student was Osman Ibrahim Gashi (23). An eye-witness, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a tall man with a black overcoat was seen leaving the scene and being driven away by a waiting car a few meters away. (sources Center for Defense of Human Rights and Freedom, Kosovo Information Center, and Pristina Media Center 1st February)
The next weekend Remi's fighters were at it again, this time bombing the "Almir" convenience store in Pristina's Ulpijana suburb and killing 3 Albanians. Storeowner Enver Salja (52) and Viljora Kumoli (16) were killed outright, while Arton Ajeti (20) died on his was to the hospital. A powerful explosive device, planted outside the store, went off at around 7 PM local time, shattering windows of a post office some 100 m away. The BBC reported that "those killed were ethnic Albanians who were loyal to Serbia and had apparently been targeted by separatists." Particularly grisly footage of Remi's handiwork was shown on CNN with the voiceover " A leg with the shoe still on and other pieces of mangled bodies were scattered on the city's main road, and a trail of blood ran along the gutter," The LDK condemned in the strongest terms "the terrorist attack".
Interestingly, the UCK made no comment on this attack. The attack coincided with the start of the international conference in Rambouillet, France, which Remi was adamantly against. The day before there had been another bomb attack in Pristina, this time on a Serb owned bar causing no casualties. It has been suggested that Remi intended these bombings to undermine the peace talks. (Reuters, Kosovo Information Center, BBC, CNN 7th Feb)
By the first week of February, the OSCE monitors were deployed throughout Remi's zone of Operations. One of their reports describes how Remi's men operated when accosting Albanian villagers. The monitors reported that on February 5 Arben Rahmani was accosted by three men, one dressed in UCK uniform, in a vineyard at Pashki Dol Teca. After checking his identity papers, one of the men used his radio to ask whether the man should be killed or released. Before releasing him, the three questioned Rahmani about his relations with Serbs, how many Serbs were in his village, and what arms the Serbs have. He was warned not to return to the vineyard on penalty of death (source: KDOM report 8.Feb)
Remi's methods in harassing Albanian villagers are illuminated by another OSCE dispatch in which a female resident of Vucitrn reported that on February 6 four "terrorists," one sporting a UCK badge, broke into her home and beat her with a rifle butt. The "terrorists" allegedly searched the home and took a rifle, saying they would kill her if she reported to police. (source: KDOM report 9. Feb )
Remi's depredations around Vucitrn increased dramatically in the next few weeks. On Tuesday the 23rd of February at 9:00am an Associated Press photographer was wounded by UCK fighters in an attack designed to expel non-Albanian residents of Bukos village near Vucitrn. The previous day, 32 year old Mirko Milosevic was murdered while working in front of his farmhouse. On Thursday, UCK snipers wounded Milorad Milic also near Vucitrn. On Saturday, Milan Milosevic died from torture wounds he received while he was kidnaped on February 22nd by Remi. ( Kosovo Media Center, Radio Yugoslavia, Kosovo Information Center, UPI, AP, and AFP)
By the end of February, Remi's fighters turned again to terrorizing Albanians in Pristina. Automatic gunfire killed Ekrem Gashi and seriously wounded Fahri Bejti and Genc Nuha as they shopped at a group of Serb owned shops early Sunday evening on the 28th February. (Kosovo Information Center 1.March)
The next weekend, Remi's attacked the "Kovac" restaurant in the Pristina suburb of Vranjevac, killing one and wounding seven Albanians who remained in the city and refused to join the UCK: Agim Revuci was killed, and Saban Zeciri, Bajram Zakupi, Gani Ismailji, Isa Krasnici, Avdulj Musica, Ismet Labljani and Arben Tahiri were wounded. (Reuters 6.March)
Nine miles north of Pristina, Remi's men shot two middled aged Serbian brothers Ljubisa and Radivoje Mitrovic in the back as they tried to escape being kidnaped on March 3rd. (March 4th By ANNE THOMPSON (AP) MIJALIC, Yugoslavia )
Remi did not forget to continue the silencing of the UCK's main rivals the LDK. On Thursday, March 11th , His fighters assassinated Enver Feka chairman of the Velika Reka chapter of the LDK outside Vucitrn. Feka was guilty of two capital offenses in Remi's eyes. First, he led a political party which advocated peaceful transition to autonomy and Second, he owned a shop which was frequented by Serbs. (source: Thursday March 11 6:50 AM ET; By Deborah Charles Reuters)
Up until now, Remi had spent most of his resources in minor attacks on moderate Albanians and terrorizing non-Albanians of every persuasion. These minor attacks and individual murders appeared to be part of a strategy designed to support a UCK offensive in the summer. However, events began to unfold quickly in mid-March and the threat of a Peace Agreement loomed at Rambouillet.
Remi was adamantly against the Rambouillet Peace Agreement and therefore attempted to destabilize the situation in the most dramatic fashion. After meeting with his UCK counterparts who departed on Friday to sign the Rambouillet Agreement, Remi undertook a bombing campaign of a ferocity heretofre unknown in Kosovo.
Remi tries to scuttle Peace Talks through bombing campaign
Remi's first series of bombs were set off on Saturday , March 13th ,in the crowded town marketplaces of Mitrovica and Podujevo. In Podujevo, Remi set two bombs to blow up 15 minutes apart which would inflict maximum damage to rescue workers arriving at the scene. The Mitovica bomb exploded only 750 meters from the OSCE mission there. On this day, Remi killed at least 8 innocent shoppers and wounded more than 58. At least 40 of the injured in the bombing were Albanians. The wounded included a eight year old girl who lost both her legs. 10 people were listed in critical condition. Reporters described pools of blood which lay amid the pulped remains of fruit and vegetable stalls.. Discarded shoes and torn clothing were strewn amid the metal stalls. (Sources: The Guardian, The Times, UPI, Reuters, AP, March 13th - 15th)
One of Remi's last acts before the UCK demanded cluster bombing of Kosovo started on March 24th was the drive by machine gunning of 4 traffic cops in Pristina. (Source Reuters 21st March) This wanton act of violence again betrayed his remarkable cold blooded attitude towards killing.
However, once the bombing began, Remi proved that while he professed to be attacking the hated Serbs, his true acts were the expulsion of more than 220,000 Albanians from his zone of operations.
Remi expels the Albanian population
Remi began expelling Albanians from the Llap region once the international monitors pulled out. The sole intent of this strategy seems to have been to provoke a refugee crisis. Evidently, the UCK knew it could only rise to power through the maximum suffering of the very people it purported to be defending.
Chris Bird of the Guardian filed a story on Saturday March 20 which described how the UCK knocked on people's doors in Srbica telling them they had to "leave immediately, at one in the morning" as the UCK spread landmines throughout the village. The villagers then had to walk miles through a wind swept snowy night.
The tide of UCK induced refugees grew until it reached 160,000 as described by Lirak Qelaj. Qelaj acted in part as an information officer for Commander Remi and one of his jobs was to film the plight of displaced Albanian civilians with a video camera. Qelaj " disclosed that it was KLA advice, rather than Serbian deportations, which led some of the hundreds of thousands of Albanians to leave Kosovo" as reported by Jonathan Steele of the Guardian on June 30th
In one episode, around 160,000 displaced people were stranded near the village of Kolic on the east side of the Pristina-Podujevo road. Qelaj said the UCK " urged the people to go on to the main road and start walking to Pristina."
Sometime in late April, in the north of the Llap region, the KLA urged another crowd hiding from the bombing and numbering almost 60,000 to leave for Macedonia and Albania according to Qelaj.
In Remi's zone of operations alone, the UCK expelled 220,000 Albanians. This is keeping with the pattern Remi established prior to the bombing. Albanians were only worthy of decent treatment if they were actively supporting the UCK. Those who stood on the sidelines were to be used for propaganda purposes or worse.
After the military occupation of Kosovo by forces led by English General Sir Micheal Jackson, Remi opened a UCK information center in Pristina. A few weeks later Remi personally insulted Gen. Jackson for his " lack of respect for KLA soldiers" and issued veiled threats against the occupation troops.
Remi Attacks General Jackson
Prishtinë, July 3, (Kosovapress)
Following last night's incident in which KFOR soldiers killed two Albanian civilians and injured two others, KFOR commander Mike Jackson expressed to the commander of the Llap operative zone, Rrustem Mustafa-Remi his profound regrets. They met today upon the request of General Jackson. Agim Çeku, Chief of Staff of th KLA also attended the meeting.
Commander Remi expressed his concern over the uncontrolled behavior of some KFOR soldiers towards Albanian citizens, in particular, towards KLA soldiers and their superiors. Some incidents between KFOR troops and Albanian civilians and personnel have been categorically stated as unacceptable. Remi added that these acts increase the tension between KFOR and Albanians.
In relation to the incident last night which resulted in the death of two KLA soldiers, Fahri Bici and Avni Liman Dudi, and the injury of two other civilians, Commander Remi, said this was an undisciplined attacked and was unacceptable coming from the allies of the Kosovar people.
These actions are not necessary, said Remi, "because, based on information gathered from eyewitnesses, KFOR soldiers were not in danger. Last night thousands of citizens were in the streets to celebrate the victory over a common enemy. Our citizens were celebrating together with KFOR soldiers. This joy turned to death due to an irresponsible act taken by the KFOR patrol.
"I expect from you that those who committed this act to be held responsible. I am afraid that among your soldiers there is a lack of respect for KLA soldiers. It is in our common interest to work together in a mutually respectful atmosphere between the KLA, the Kosovar civilians and KFOR troops. We must do everything to make sure these acts will not be repeated again."
KFOR commander Jackson expressed his regrets and apologized for last night's incident. "Our soldiers did not know that they were KLA soldiers. They felt they were in danger and they opened fire. "Commander Jackson promised the case would be investigated fully with all necessary measures taken.
Commander Remi also wanted to clarify with his counterpart the process of transforming the KLA into a regular army. "We insist, as the people of Kosova, to keep the continuity of our army. We will not disband our troops under no condition but we will maintain this organization until we are able to transform ourselves into a regular army as the agreement stipulated." (End of Kosovapress release)
Not only does Remi feel he can insult Gen. Jackson directly to his face, Remi apparently continues to hold fast to the idea that his troops will never disband. Since the time of Remi's last communique reprinted above, there has been little news about him. However, the increasing number of mass graves which are being uncovered in North-East Kosovo seem to be his handiwork. These mass graves are filled with bodies of civilians murdered after Yugoslav forces left Kosovo. Remi may be as active as ever, but just not as willing to grant interviews.
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