Kosovo Liberation Army

SOFIA, Bulgaria - Bulgarian authorities have detained a former Kosovo prime minister on an international arrest warrant issued by Interpol, and Serbia sought his extradition yesterday. Agim Ceku, the prime minister of Kosovo between 2006 and 2008, was taken into custody at Serbia’s request at the Gyueshevo border checkpoint while entering Bulgaria from Macedonia late Tuesday, according to police. Ceku, 48, is wanted for war crimes allegedly committed during the 1998-1999 fighting in Kosovo, when he was military chief of the Kosovo Liberation Army, made up of ethnic Albanian guerrillas.

A Kosovo court has cleared a senior Kosovo politician and three of his associates of allegations that they tortured and killed Serb detainees during the 1998-99 Kosovo war. A panel of three judges — two from the European Union and one from Kosovo — dropped the case against Fatmir Limaj, a former commander in the Kosovo Liberation Army that fought a separatist war against Serbia. Limaj said the verdict proved that the KLA fought "a just and clean fight. " The case — run by an Italian prosecutor in the 3,000-strong EU rule of law mission in Kosovo — was largely based on the...

A Kosovo court has cleared a senior Kosovo politician and three of his associates of allegations that they tortured and killed Serb detainees during the 1998-99 Kosovo war. A panel of three judges — two from the European Union and one from Kosovo — dropped the case against Fatmir Limaj, a former commander in the Kosovo Liberation Army that fought a separatist war against Serbia. Limaj said the verdict proved that the KLA fought "a just and clean fight. " The case — run by an Italian prosecutor in the 3,000-strong EU rule of law mission in Kosovo — was largely based on the...

PRISTINA, Kosovo — Ethnic Albanian rebels in Kosovo gave detailed testimony in 2003 on an alleged program to kill Serb captives, sell their organs, and bury hundreds of victims to hide evidence of civilian killings, according to a United Nations document obtained by the Associated Press. The 30-page compilation of statements by at least eight people to UN investigators could provide momentum to claims that the world body failed to pay proper attention to war crimes by ethnic Albanian Kosovars in their 1990s war for independence.

PRISTINA, Serbia - A former rebel leader was elected Kosovo's prime minister yesterday, vowing that the province is only weeks away from independence and calling on Serbia to give up its claim to the territory. Kosovo's parliament elected Hashim Thaci by a vote of 85-22 to head a coalition government that will try to steer the province through a declaration of independence, a course supported by the United States and some European governments, but fiercely opposed by Serbia and Russia.

PRISTINA, Kosovo — Ethnic Albanian rebels in Kosovo gave detailed testimony in 2003 on an alleged program to kill Serb captives, sell their organs, and bury hundreds of victims to hide evidence of civilian killings, according to a United Nations document obtained by the Associated Press. The 30-page compilation of statements by at least eight people to UN investigators could provide momentum to claims that the world body failed to pay proper attention to war crimes by ethnic Albanian Kosovars in their 1990s war for independence.

PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro -- Kosovo lawmakers yesterday elected a former rebel commander to be the prime minister even though he was recently questioned by UN war crimes investigators. The 120-seat parliament voted 72-3 to let Ramush Haradinaj, 36, an ethnic Albanian, head the new Kosovo government. Many members abstained, mainly lawmakers for the second-largest party, the rival Democratic League of Kosovo. The parliament also certified the victory of President Ibrahim Rugova's party in last month's general elections by reelecting him as president.

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Kosovo - Violent protests rocked Serb-dominated northern Kosovo yesterday as crowds chanting "Kosovo is ours!" hurled stones, bottles, and firecrackers at UN police guarding a bridge that divides Serbs from ethnic Albanians. The scenes evoked memories of the carnage unleashed by former Serb autocrat Slobodan Milosevic the last time Kosovo tried to break away from Serbia, which considers the territory its ancestral homeland. There were disturbing signs that the riots in Belgrade, Serbia, and in the northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica have the blessing...

Albania's parliament has approved legislation granting the European Union permission to investigate claims that civilian captives from the 1998-99 Kosovo war were murdered by organ traffickers. American prosecutor John Clint Williamson, who heads an EU investigation task force, described Thursday's vote as "a strong statement of Albania's commitment to accountability and the rule of law. " A Council of Europe report by Swiss politician Dick Marty alleged that the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army ran detention centers on Albania's border during neighboring...

CAMDEN, N.J. - A New Jersey baker pleaded guilty yesterday to conspiring to provide weapons to a group of men accused of plotting an attack on Fort Dix. Agron Abdullahu, 25, faces up to five years in federal prison. He is the first person to be convicted in connection with the alarming accusation that a group of young men were planning to raid the nearby Army installation and kill soldiers there. Abdullahu's public defender, Richard Coughlin, said that if a plot is found to have existed, his client had no role in it. "My client was essentially used by these other...

SOFIA, Bulgaria - Bulgarian authorities have detained a former Kosovo prime minister on an international arrest warrant issued by Interpol, and Serbia sought his extradition yesterday. Agim Ceku, the prime minister of Kosovo between 2006 and 2008, was taken into custody at Serbia’s request at the Gyueshevo border checkpoint while entering Bulgaria from Macedonia late Tuesday, according to police. Ceku, 48, is wanted for war crimes allegedly committed during the 1998-1999 fighting in Kosovo, when he was military chief of the Kosovo Liberation Army, made up of ethnic Albanian guerrillas.

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Kosovo - Violent protests rocked Serb-dominated northern Kosovo yesterday as crowds chanting "Kosovo is ours!" hurled stones, bottles, and firecrackers at UN police guarding a bridge that divides Serbs from ethnic Albanians. The scenes evoked memories of the carnage unleashed by former Serb autocrat Slobodan Milosevic the last time Kosovo tried to break away from Serbia, which considers the territory its ancestral homeland. There were disturbing signs that the riots in Belgrade, Serbia, and in the northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica have the blessing...

PRISTINA, Serbia - A former rebel leader was elected Kosovo's prime minister yesterday, vowing that the province is only weeks away from independence and calling on Serbia to give up its claim to the territory. Kosovo's parliament elected Hashim Thaci by a vote of 85-22 to head a coalition government that will try to steer the province through a declaration of independence, a course supported by the United States and some European governments, but fiercely opposed by Serbia and Russia.

PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro -- Kosovo lawmakers yesterday elected a former rebel commander to be the prime minister even though he was recently questioned by UN war crimes investigators. The 120-seat parliament voted 72-3 to let Ramush Haradinaj, 36, an ethnic Albanian, head the new Kosovo government. Many members abstained, mainly lawmakers for the second-largest party, the rival Democratic League of Kosovo. The parliament also certified the victory of President Ibrahim Rugova's party in last month's general elections by reelecting him as president.

LONDON - She was instantly recognizable for the eye patch that hid a shrapnel injury, a testament to Marie Colvin's courage, which took her behind the front lines of the world's deadliest conflicts to write about the suffering of individuals trapped in war. After more than two decades of chronicling conflict, Ms. Colvin became a victim of it yesterday, killed by shelling in the besieged Syrian city of Homs. Ms. Colvin, 56, died alongside French photojournalist Remi Ochlik, the French government said.

PRISTINA, Kosovo — At least seven people, including a former senior health ministry official, are suspected of involvement in an international network that falsely promised poor people payment for their kidneys and then sold the organs for as much as $137,000, according to a European Union indictment obtained by the Associated Press. The indictment is the starkest revelation of the extent of organized crime in the country since Kosovo declared independence in 2008. The organized criminal group trafficked people into Kosovo for the purpose of removing human...