Serbia Puts 145 Kosovars on Trial for Terrorism

In one of the largest mass trials ever in the Yugoslav republic of Serbia, 145 ethnic Albanians faced terrorism charges Tuesday for allegedly fighting Serbian forces in Kosovo last year.

The accused, all men, appeared in a courtroom in Nis, where the trial was moved because no courtroom was large enough to hold them in the nearby town of Leskovac, the original venue.

The ethnic Albanian defendants are charged with “terrorist” actions against Serbian security troops stationed at the time in Kosovo, a province of Serbia. Those actions included the killing of three Serbian policemen and the wounding of at least seven.

If found guilty, the defendants could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison. Verdicts and sentencing were expected later this week.

All the accused were arrested in the Kosovo town of Djakovica, about 40 miles southwest of Pristina, the provincial capital, during NATO airstrikes a year ago.

When the North Atlantic Treaty Organization took control of Kosovo in June, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s withdrawing forces transferred more than 2,000 ethnic Albanians charged with terrorism from Kosovo to prisons elsewhere in Serbia.

The defense, represented by 26 lawyers, demanded that two of the ethnic Albanians be released from custody because one is experiencing psychiatric problems and the other suffered a heart attack and is paralyzed.