3 Kosovo Albanians Held in Rebel’s Slaying

United Nations police have arrested three ethnic Albanian men suspected of killing an Albanian wartime rebel commander, officials said Wednesday.

Ekrem Rexha, known as Cmdr. Drini, was killed a year ago as he left his house in the southern Kosovo city of Prizren. Kosovo is a province of Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic.

The three men were arrested Monday in Prizren.

The U.S. representative’s office in Kosovo said all three were ranking members of the Kosovo Protection Corps. However, the corps’ commander, Agim Ceku, said only one of the men was a corps member.

The corps, a civil defense group, was created after the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army was disbanded.

It was not clear whether the men served under Rexha or what the motive for his killing was.

Rexha was a rebel commander during the Yugoslav government’s brutal campaign against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo that ended in mid-1999, when Serbian troops withdrew after the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 78-day air war.

Meanwhile, the U.N. administrator in Kosovo said that, despite pressure by ethnic Albanians, a framework agreement for the province will not include a clause for a referendum on independence.