THE HAGUE (AFP) - Three ethnic Albanians went on trial in an unprecedented case at the UN war crimes court, charged with murder, torture and inhuman acts allegedly committed against Serb and Albanian civilians in Kosovo in 1998.
"No cause, however just, justifies murder," prosecutor Andrew Cayley said as the trial opened at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.
Fatmir Limaj, 33, Haradin Bala, 57 and Isak Musliu, 34 -- all former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) -- allegedly committed the war crimes against Serb and Albanian civilians held in a KLA prison camp in Lapushnik, eastern Kosovo, in 1998.
All three men appeared relaxed Monday as the trial began, and busily took notes as the prosecutor read out the charges.
Limaj was commander at the camp run by former Kosovo Albanian rebel leader-turned politician Hashim Thaci's KLA at the time of the alleged offences. Among the charges levelled against him are the murder of 10 Serbs and Albanians.
According to the charge sheet, the three men "contributed to maintaining inhuman conditions in the camp ... and participating in acts of torture and physical cruelty inflicted on detainees".
Former camp guard Musliu stands accused of participating in the murder of four detainees in July 1998.
Bala is accused of taking part in the execution of 11 detainees in the same month as Serb forces were in the process of retaking the Lapushnik region.
During their initial appearance in court, the three defendants had pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Cayley read out the list of the three defendants' alleged victims, saying they had carried out a "joint criminal enterprise."
"Both Serbian and Albanians were targeted" according to the prosecutor, who said he would call forward a series of witnesses to testify that the KLA prisoner camps existed -- something he said the defendents denied.
Cayley showed the court a "sentence" for "treachery" passed by the KLA, found pinned to the body of an Albanian man found executed.
The executions came to light, he said, after a man who survived a botched KLA execution informed the Kosovo police, who forwarded the case to the UN mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).
The southern Serbian province has been under UN administration since the end of the 1998-99 war between ethnic Albanian separatists and Serbian forces.
The trial has already hit the headlines after an ethnic Albanian man from Kosovo pleaded not guilty on Monday before the UN war crimes court here to charges of intimidating witnesses called to testify in the trial of the three.
Beqa Beqaj, 51, from the central Kosovo village of Petrovo, insisted that he was innocent of the charges for which he could be sentenced to a maximum seven years in prison and fined 100,000 euros (130,000 dollars).
Chief UN war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte has said she expects to bring more charges against the three accused before the end of the year.
11/15/2004 - 17:52 GMT - AFP