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| Zoran Rashkovic |
Zoran Rashkovic, a former member of the Serbian paramilitary unit "Jackals", has stated in the High Court of Belgrade that one of the defendants in the case of war crimes in four villages of Kosovo in the spring of 1999, was present during the shooting at a group of Albanian civilians.
Zoran Rashkovic said that Predrag Vukovic, nicknamed "Madzo", was among the group of Serbian fighters who kidnapped and killed a group of Albanian civilians captured in the village of Qyshk, in Kosovo, in May 1999, local media report.
Rashković told him that Vuković had gone to his unit after other crimes committed in the village of Lubenić and that he remembered that Vuković went into action together with the "Jackals".
He has shown that Vuković, together with two other fighters, Ranko Momić and Milojko Nikolic "Sumadija", had sent a group of Albanian civilians of 15 or 20 people to an unfinished house in the village and executed them.
"He was in the group that led up to the shooting. Ranko Momic led and organized it. I heard the shots and I saw Ranko 'Sumadija'", said Rashkovic.
"I heard shots, [but] I don't know if it was shot by one, two or three guns," he added.
However, Rashkovic said that he did not see Vukovic shoot.
Vuković is one of 11 former members of Unit 177 of the Yugoslav Army who is being tried for war crimes committed in the villages of Zahač, Qyshk, Pavlan, and Lubenić, in the western part of Kosovo, in May 1999. The indictment charges them with the killing of at least 118 Albanians.
Vuković was arrested in 2018, and appeared at the court for the first time in November 2019. He is accused of crimes against villagers in the villages of Lubenić and Qyshk.
Rashkovic, who is one of the prosecution's main witnesses, this time came to Vukovic's defense.
When he was interviewed for a BIRN documentary that dealt with the investigation of the role of commanders in the massacres carried out in Kosovo in 1999, he said that Vukotić participated in the operation.
The High Court of Belgrade has waited a year for Rashkovic to be called to testify, because he was in a prison in Germany. In Friday's session, Rashkovic was present in court, because he was extradited from Germany, for another criminal proceeding in Serbia.
In a 2015 hearing, Rashkovic testified that on April 1, 1999, another unit had executed about 60 men in the village of Lubeniq in Kosovo, while in 2011 he also spoke about the crimes committed in the village of Qyshk.
It was planned that Rashkovic would testify in court under a coded name, to hide his identity, but on Friday he decided to speak openly and tell about, as he said, "the truth about the horrors in Kosovo".
This was the first time in the history of the Serbian court that a protected witness decided to testify publicly.
But on Friday, Rashkovic asked the High Court of Belgrade to restore his status as a protected witness, on the grounds that he had received death threats against him and his family if he continued to testify about the crimes. in Kosovo.
Defense lawyers have opposed this request of Rashkovic, on the grounds that he is lying and trying to manipulate the court.