Global Policy Forum

An international panel in Kosovo sentenced a Serb to 20 years in prison on Thursday for his role in the killing of more than 90 ethnic Albanians, a United Nations spokesman said. Cedomir Jovanovic, an alleged member of a Serbian paramilitary group, was convicted in connection with the deaths of an estimated 95 people in two separate incidents on March 25, 1999, U.N. spokesman Christian Lindmeier said. At least 30 people were shot in one incident and 65 in the other. Only three survived.

Andjelko Kolasinac, a former village leader in Orahovac, in central Kosovo, received a five-year sentence for a lesser charge, Lindmeier said. "The way the judges put it, doubts could not be raised that he participated. On the other hand, they couldn't prove it," Lindmeier said. "So what they finally gave him was 'giving help to the offender of a crime'."

The mood was somber as the verdict was read in the courtroom in the southern city of Prizren, as ethnic Albanians outside expressed happiness that Jovanovic had received the toughest sentence possible, Lindmeier said. Jovanovic and Kolasinac faced war crimes charges related to massacres and looting and burning of homes in and around Orahovac during NATO's 1999 bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, the indictment said. It originally named eight suspects, but six escaped from a Kosovo jail last year.

The conviction is the first in post-war Kosovo made by a three-judge international panel for war crimes. Both men can appeal their sentences.

NATO launched the bombing campaign to halt Belgrade's repression of Kosovo's Albanian majority. Albanians in the province have told reporters many of the worst atrocities in the province came just after the bombing started.

Kosovo remains legally part of Yugoslavia, but is now a de facto international protectorate.