6 November 2003 Afternoon Edition

Kosovo News

· UN police hunt slayers of elderly Serbs (AFP)
· Police launches massive operation in search for killers of three Kosovo Serbs (AP)
· Kosovo leaders welcome 2005 review (AFP)
· Denmark's Crown Prince Frederick to visit Danish troops in Kosovo (AP)

Regional News

· Don’t insist on state union, Strasbourg tells EU (Beta)
· SCG shows that a multiethnic society is possible in the Balkans (AFP)
· US urges Macedonia to focus on reforms (dpa)

Other News

· Lindh murder suspect agrees to further detention (AFP)

UN police hunt slayers of elderly Serbs

PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro, Nov 6 (AFP) - United Nations police launched a massive search operation in Kosovo on Thursday to hunt down the murderers of a Serb family killed in their home last June, a UN official said.

The operation began at 4:00 am (0300 GMT) in Obilic, the small town where the Stolic family was murdered just outside the capital Pristina, UN police spokesman Derek Chappell told AFP.

"The operation is still going on. Until it is completed I cannot say more," Chappell said.
The elderly Stolic couple and their son were axed to death and their house was set on fire in what many Serbs believe was an ethnic hate crime by Kosovar Albanian extremists.
UN officials have not classified the murders as ethnically motivated and no suspects have so far been arrested.

Hundreds of Serbs and non-Albanians have been killed or have gone missing since the end of the Kosovo war in 1999.

Kosovo came under UN control after a NATO bombing campaign forced Belgrade forces to withdraw from the southern Serbian province.

Police launches massive operation in search for killers of three Kosovo Serbs

PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) _ United Nations and local police officers launched a massive manhunt Thursday for suspects in the gruesome killing of three Kosovo Serbs earlier this year.

Police staged a pre-dawn raid on the town of Obilic, 15 kilometers (10 miles) northwest of Pristina, in a ``targeted operation'' in search of evidence and suspects, said Derek Chappell, a spokesman for the U.N. police in Kosovo. He would not say whether any arrests were made, citing ongoing operations.

The Kosovo Serbs were hacked to death and their house set ablaze in the June attack in Obilic. The killing was unanimously condemned as a hate crime by senior U.N., Serb and ethnic Albanian officials.

The burnt bodies of Slobodan Stolic, 80, his wife Radmila, 78, and their 53 year-old son, Ljubinko, were found inside their home after authorities extinguished the fire. The United Nations mission in Kosovo has offered a reward of 50,000 (US$58,800) for information leading to the arrest of the killers.

Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since mid-1999, after a NATO air war halted a Serb crackdown on independence-seeking ethnic Albanians. Tens of thousands of Serbs have fled the province since them to escape the threat of attack by ethnic Albanian extremists.

Kosovo leaders welcome 2005 review

PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro, Nov 6 (AFP) - Kosovar Albanian leaders have welcomed a top US diplomat's promise to review by 2005 their progress toward mutli-ethnic democracy.

Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi said the review could pave the way for a final settlement of the province's status and the ethnic Albanian majority's demands for independence from Serbia.

"We will work for the standards, not only to solve the Kosovo issue, but also for integration into the European Union and I think all is now much clearer," he said in comments released late Wednesday.

"Now the standards are palpable and measurable. Everyone knows the part to be played ... We now have a deadline and we will meet it on time."

Rexhepi made his comments after meeting US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman in the Kosovo capital Pristina.

Grossman said the province would have to meet a set of UN-set standards including the return of minorities, economic reform and the establishment of the rule of law before its final status could be discussed.

But he said the province's progress would be reviewed in 2005 and, if the international community is satisfied that the UN's standards have been met, consideration of Kosovo's legal status would follow.

It is the first time a senior foreign diplomat has given any kind of timetable for the resolution of the issue, which has plagued relations between Kosovo and Serbia since the 1998-99 war.

The breakaway southern Serbian province has been under UN administration since the end of the war between separatist ethnic Albanian guerrillas and Serbian forces loyal to then Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic.

The province's majority ethnic-Albanians want Kosovo to be independent, while Belgrade insists that it is an integral part of Serbian territory.

Grossman earlier Wednesday visited Belgrade and discussed the situation with Nebojsa Covic, the Serbian official in charge of Kosovo policy, and Serbia-Montenegro Defence Minister Boris Tadic.

Denmark's Crown Prince Frederick to visit Danish troops in Kosovo

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) _ Denmark's Crown Prince Frederik, heir to Europe's oldest monarchy, will visit the Danish troops at the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo, the royal palace said Thursday.

Frederik, who will marry Australian commoner Mary Donaldson next year, will visit Denmark's 450-man contingent serving with the force Nov. 10-12. The Danish unit includes some 100 soldiers from Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia.

A major in the army and air force, and a navy commander, the 35-year-old Frederik also volunteered for the Danish Navy's elite Froemandskorpset. Currently, he is a senior lecturer at the Institute of Strategy at the Royal Danish Defense College.

The KFOR force is made up of 21,000 soldiers from 37 countries. It was deployed in 1999 after NATO intervened to stop Serb forces' crackdown on ethnic Albanians.

Don’t insist on state union, Strasbourg tells EU (Beta)

STRASBOURG -- Thursday – The Foreign Policy Committee of the European Parliament has urged the EU not to insist on preserving the state union of Serbia and Montenegro at any cost.

In its report on the stabilization and association of south-eastern European countries with the EU, the committee said that Belgrade and Podgorica should be permitted to decide on their own relationship.

The committee also called on the EU to take a more active role in resolving the status of Kosovo within the next two years.

SCG shows that a multiethnic society is possible in the Balkans

BELGRADE, Nov 6 (Tanjug) - Serbia and Montenegro President Svetozar Marovic has said that a multiethnic, multiconfessional society, in which all problems are resolved using democratic, political means, is possible in the Balkans, and that the state union of Serbia and Montenegro, with its harmonious relations, is a true example of that.

"It is owing to those harmonious relations between Serbia and Montenegro, in the Balkans which has been a powder keg for a long time, I see Serbia and Montenegro as an invaluable stability factor in the Western Balkan region," said Marovic in an interview with the Ukraine new agency Ukrinform, before arriving on a two-day visit to Kiev.

US urges Macedonia to focus on reforms
Skopje (dpa) - United States top envoy Marc Grossman urged Macedonia Thursday to focus its efforts on reforms to bring the country closer to Western standards.
``Macedonia should focus on the reforms in the country, implementation of the Ohrid peace deal, and it should support the efforts aimed at achieving standards in Kosovo'', Skopje media quoted Grossman as saying.
The Macedonian government has faced a recent tide of criticism as international observers and local experts warned Skopje of stalling the reform process and reducing international interest in investment, which led to a major reshuffle in the country's government Wednesday.
Grossman, an under-secretary of state, praised relations between Washington and Skopje, announcing a series of high-profile meetings between Macedonian Premier Branko Crvenkovski and U.S. officials in Washington later this month.
However, during talks with Macedonian officials Grossman also insisted on Kosovo-related issues, saying the process of resolving problems in the United Nations-administrated province would allow Balkan countries to move closer to NATO and the European Union.
``I am glad Macedonia supports clear and measurable standards which need to be achieved in Kosovo before the beginning of talks on the final status of province,'' Grossman said.
The final status of Kosovo ``can be resolved'', he added, but only once the Kosovan population and international bodies established ``rule of law and security for all ethnic groups''.
The U.S. stance on Kosovo had been challenged by Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova Wednesday. He said it would be a ``recognition of independence'' that would ``accelerate the achievement of standards and would calm the region''.
Belgrade chief coordinator for Kosovo Nebojsa Covic rejected the possibility of talks on Kosovo independence, insisting this would ``destabilize the whole region'' including Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Kosovo has been run by the U.N. administration since 1999, when NATO air intervention forced Serbian security forces out of the province. The conflict and the ensuing events left nearly 10,000 dead, mainly Albanians, and 150,000 Serbian refugees.
Macedonia also paid a price for the unresolved ethnic issues in the region after the Kosovo war resulting in the ethnic Albanian insurgency in 2001.

Lindh murder suspect agrees to further detention

STOCKHOLM, Nov 6 (AFP) - Prosecutors facing a Friday deadline in the investigation into the killing of Sweden's foreign minister Anna Lindh were on Wednesday given two more weeks to bring formal charges against a jailed suspect.

The extension until November 21, granted by a Stockholm court, was a mere formality after the suspect, 24-year-old Mijailo Mijailovic, did not object to his further detention.
Mijailovic has repeatedly claimed that he is innocent.

Lindh, who had been tipped to one day become prime minister, was fatally stabbed in the abdomen by an unknown attacker on September 10 while she was shopping at a Stockholm department store and died the following day, in a killing that stunned Sweden.
Her attacker fled the scene on foot, leaving behind the bloodied knife and a baseball cap.
Swedish police have previously said that DNA tests conducted on traces from the knife strengthened the case against Mijailovic. The DNA results are expected to be a crucial part of the case brought against Mijailovic.

According to some unconfirmed press reports, Mijailovic confessed to the crime in a conversation with his mother a few days after the attack.

Press reports at the weekend also said police had found a pair of trousers covered in Lindh's blood, which could belong to her killer. The trousers were found in a forest, hidden under a rock.

Prosecutors have said that they hope to press charges before Christmas in a case that revived painful members of the unresolved 1986 murder of prime minister Olof Palme.
A Swede of Serb origin, Mijailovic is said to suffer from psychiatric problems and had a police record showing he was charged in 1997 for attacking his father with a kitchen knife.

Swedish media said he was fixated on certain famous people and "hated Anna Lindh", notably for backing the NATO air strikes against Belgrade during the war in Kosovo in 1999.

Lindh was without a bodyguard, as is customary in Sweden, when the attack occurred, just days before a Swedish referendum on whether to adopt the euro in which she was a leading campaigner for the "yes" campaign.