The defense team of the former Chief of the VJ General Staff claims that it has not received any remuneration for its work since last April and warns that it will be unable to prepare properly for the defense of its client, who is accused of crimes against humanity in Kosovo.

Since all of their indictments are identical, the prosecution is expected to file a motion to try General Lazarevic together with Milutinovic, Sainovic and Ojdanic who are awaiting trial and who are also charged with crimes against humanity in Kosovo

At the initial appearance of the accused before a judge, the prosecution announced its intention to file an application for a joinder of Lazarevic’s case with the Milutinovic-Sainovich-Ojdanic case

It is true that Milutinovic, Sainovic and Ojdanic are waiting for “a very long time” for their trial to start – which is why their defense requests their provisional release. The Trail Chamber, however, has some questions about the readiness of the Serbian government to arrest the accused if they refuse to return to The Hague for their trial

The second of the four generals of the VJ and Serbian police indicted for the crimes in Kosovo in 1999 surrenders voluntarily to the ICTY

Two days after his transfer from Belgrade to the UN Detention Unit, Serbian police general Sreten Lukic postponed entering his plea at his initial appearance by 30 days

Generals Vladimir Lazarevic and Sreten Lukic are joined in the UN Detention Unit by General Nebojsa Pavkovic. Of the four persons accused of the crimes in Kosovo in 1999, only General Vlastimir Djordjevic, former chief of the Public Security Sector in the Serbian MUP, remains at large

Retired VJ general Nebojsa Pavkovic, who arrived in the UN Detention Unit on Monday, pleaded not guilty today on any of the counts of the indictment, charging him with crimes against humanity and violations of laws and customs of war committed in Kosovo in the first half of 1999

In just one sentence, police general Sreten Lukic pleaded not guilty on the counts of the indictment charging him with crimes against humanity and violations of the laws and customs of war, committed by Serbian MUP forces in Kosovo in the first half of 1999

Joint trial of Milan Milutinovic, Nikola Sainovic, Dragoljub Ojdanic, Nebojsa Pavkovic, Vladimir Lazarevic and Sreten Lukic – and Vlastimir Djordjevic, if he arrives in The Hague by that time – is expected to begin in December 2005 or January 2006

At the hearing on motion for provisional release filed by Nebojsa Pavkovic, the Serbian Government offers guarantees he would return for his trial, but the prosecutor noted his return was not at all certain in the light of the previous conduct of the accused

Trial Chamber III delivers, for the second time, the decision on provisional release of Nebojsa Pavkovic pending his trial for crimes against humanity in Kosovo. The prosecution managed to obtain a stay on the execution of the first decision to that effect on 30 September, but will not be appealing it this time

The Chamber granted two of three applications filed by General Ojdanic seeking binding orders for NATO and some of its member-states to produce documents. He considers those documents may be important for his defense

It has been announced at the pre-trial conference in the case against six Serbian officials charged with the crimes in Kosovo that one of the accused, General Dragoljub Ojdanic will address the Chamber after the prosecutor’s opening statement. The trial is due to start on Monday, 10 July

The prosecution delivers its opening statement at the trial of the six former political, military and police officials from Serbia, charged with participation in a joint criminal enterprise aimed, as stated today, “to change the demographic structure of Kosovo in order to continue and reinforce the Serb control over the province”

In his half-hour statement made at the beginning of his trial for crimes against humanity in Kosovo, former Chief of VJ General Staff Dragoljub Ojdanic claims “there was no joint criminal enterprise”; hence he could not have been a participant in it

Since they could not prevent the human rights violations in Kosovo, the staff of the KVM Human Rights Office decided the best thing to do was to “witness and reliably and impartially document the events,” Sandra Mitchell says, testifying as the first prosecution witness at the trial of six Serb officials

The defense counsel representing the six Serbian political, police and military leaders oppose the admission into evidence of the report by the KVM Human Rights Office. They claim the report is “biased”, adding that the researchers who had gathered the statements from about 2,800 victims and witnesses of the Kosovo crimes were “incompetent”

Goran Stoparic, who was to testify at the Slobodan Milosevic trial but never did, testifies at the trial of the six former political, military and police officials from Serbia, charged with the crimes in Kosovo in the first half of 1999

The Trial Chamber publishes its written statement of reasons for the decision to exclude the crimes in Racak, Dubrava and Padaliste from the indictment against the former Serbian officials. In the opinion of the Chamber, the prosecution can adequately argue its case even without calling any evidence on the three locations

At the end of the testimony of the former Scorpion, the presiding judge wonders aloud why the prosecution called evidence on a crime not alleged in the indictment. The prosecutor explains that he wanted to show that the accused Serbian officials in Kosovo had used units “they knew had committed crimes in previous wars” and to highlight the “failure to punish”

Adnan Merovci, witness for the prosecution, describes the meeting between Slobodan Milosevic and Ibrahim Rugova in April 1999 not as negotiations but as 'a fight for survival’, indicating that it did not end with an agreement – as stated by the Serb authorities – but with a press release

While the defense counsel for the Kosovo Six claim that Ibrahim Rugova attended the meetings with Serbian officials in April 1999 "voluntarily" with the army and the police "protecting" the president of the Kosovo Democratic League (DSK), the witness maintains Rugova was acting out of fear for his own safety and that of his family

On the second day of his testimony, General Aleksandar Vasiljevic lists the crimes against ethnic Albanians that the authorities knew about, tells the court how the army and the police blamed each other, and how Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic dealt with the killings of Albanian civilians

The defense counsel for police general Sreten Lukic claims that during the war in Kosovo the Interior Ministry filed about two thousand criminal reports against the perpetrators of the crimes in Kosovo. Aleksandar Vasiljevic, the then deputy chief of military intelligence service, insists he heard of only sixteen such cases; he was told about them by Minister Vlajko Stoiljkovic

At the end of his five-day testimony, General Aleksandar Vasiljevic explained why five years ago he had told the prosecution in a statement that the accused general Lukic was “the last hole in the flute” whereas now he described him as the police commander during the war in Kosovo

Former member of the Yugoslav army describes how in a village near Orahovac his fellow soldiers killed a group of more than twenty Albanians, after ordering them to take off their civilian clothes and put on KLA uniforms

An insider is testifying about the killings and expulsions of Albanian civilians from Korenica, Meja and other villages in the Djakovica area with a number "clarifications" and warnings. The witness, testifying under pseudonym K-90, says that the civilians from Meja and Korenica villages were expelled and killed by the police. The commander of his VJ unit saw everything but didn’t do anything to prevent it

Former VJ army volunteer today continued to change and "clarify" his statement given to the OTP in 2002. He had to be subpoenaed to testify. It is still not clear whether the army "relocated" or "expelled" Kosovo Albanians, "looted" or "searched" the villages. The witness is also not sure if he saw just two members of Frenki's Unit or the whole Special Operations Unit near Korenica and Meja when several hundreds of Kosovo Albanians were killed

Former Norwegian foreign affairs minister tells the court what he heard and saw on the Albanian border several days after NATO launched the Kosovo campaign. Knut Vollebaek’s claim that the Serb forces "marked" Albanian refugees with different-colors armbands according to the route they were to follow provoked the defense counsel to object and resulted in a brief adjournment

After describing the murders, rapes, looting and house burning committed by his fellow fighters in Kosovo, former member of the Special Police Units gave evidence about a conversation between his superior officers. One of them advised the other to allow the police to loot, ‘because it will have a positive effect on their morale”

As his evidence continued, protected witness K-79 said that his squad commander killed two young Albanian men. He also described his encounters with Milorad Ulemek and Franko Simatovic, and the aftermath of the Special Operations Unit (JSO) actions in Kosovo

Former British military attaché claims that General Ojdanic knew in 1998 that the military was shelling Kosovo villages in joint actions with the police. His reaction to this was "phlegmatic". The witness thinks that force had to be used against "the terrorist KLA", not against civilians

John Crossland estimates that in 1998 the KLA had only 400 hardcore soldiers but allows that his estimate might be inaccurate. Yet he is sure that their defense positions were "immature and dumb". The judge warned the defense counsel against asking irrelevant questions and "Milosevic-style cross-examination". Crossland will testify at the trial of Ramush Haradinaj

Prosecution indicates it will rest in March, and the defence counsel for the Kosovo Six call for four months to prepare for their case. If the Chamber agrees to their demand, the defence case might begin in late summer or early fall

French pathologist gives evidence about the cause of death of more than 500 Kosovo Albanians killed on 10 locations in Kosovo listed in the indictment against six Serbian officials

The cross-examination at the trial of the Kosovo Six was marked by the clash of opinions between two Americans, Patrick Ball, the witness, and John Ackermann, defense counsel. The witness rejected the claim that the movements of people in Kosovo had been caused by "rumors" spread by Kosovo press.

A logistics police officer testifies about the dead bodies transferred from Kosovo to Batajnica in the spring of 1999 to be buried there. He described some of the incidents en route and at the burial

Ambassador Wolfgang Petritsch talks about the draft of the Rambouillet military agreement that the Yugoslav delegation rejected in March 1999 although it envisaged that NATO would do what the VJ could not do - disarm the KLA and restore peace in Kosovo

Ambassador Wolfgang Petrisch claims that the deal was for the Rambouillet agreement to "be reexamined and revised" after three years, taking into account "the will of the population". This wording included both the Serbian and Albanian side and it did not inevitably envisage that a referendum would be called. The international community "already learned the lesson from the referendum in BH"

In his cross-examination, Ambassador Wolfgang Petritsch repeats that the phrase "the will of the people" in the Rambouillet document made it possible to hold a referendum about the province’s status both in Kosovo and in Serbia. In his view, though, this would have resulted in a deadlock which could be resolved only by a compromise

Head of the UNMIK Missing Persons Office compared the forensic evidence from Afghanistan and Kosovo to explain why in his view the Albanians whose bodies were found in Batajnica, Petrovo Selo and the Perucac lake had not been killed in action

Former Serbian Interior Ministry employee describes how he transported the corpses four times from Tekija and from Kosovo to mass graves in Batajnica and Petrovo Selo. The task he was given was described to him as "very important and in the interest of the state". The defense counsel contested the part of the testimony in which the witness claimed that the accused Sreten Lukic gave him instructions to transport the corpses

Former military prosecutor testifies how the attempts to prosecute VJ officers responsible for the crimes committed in Kosovo failed because of the pressure exerted by the military security service. He had been exposed to constant threats ever since he had decided to testify in The Hague, yet he decided to do it in open session believing that by doing so, he was actually reducing the risk of something happening to him. He is sure that he "cannot be protected by those who threatened him"

The cross-examination of witness Lakic Djorovic turned into a war of words between him and General Ojdanic's defense counsel. The witness was "offended" when the defense counsel said he was accusing his former colleagues in a "generalized, false and fanatical" manner

Former VJ soldier describes a number of crimes committed by members of his unit in Kosovo in the spring of 1999. He himself participated in the commission of a crime in which about 15 women and children were killed in the village of Trnje near Prizren

In the shortest testimony so far at the trial of the Kosovo Six, protected witness K-87 said that General Vlastimir Djordjevic had designated the SAJ firing range in Batajnica as the burial place for the bodies of Albanian civilians brought from Kosovo

The prosecution today formally rested at the trial of Kosovo Six after calling its 111th witness, military analyst Phillip Coo. The prosecutor asks for permission to call three more witnesses: Wesley Clark, Zoran Lilic, and Shaun Burns

The Trial Chamber in the Kosovo Six case granted the prosecution’s request to extend their case. The prosecution wants to call three more witnesses: Wesley Clark, Zoran Lilic and Shaun Burns and now has until mid-May to do it

Shaun Byrnes, head of the US diplomatic mission recounted how one of the KLA commanders had told him that he had bought weapons from a VJ colonel from Nis. , Byrnes testifies at the trial of the Kosovo. Six Zoran Lilic is expected to testify “soon”. It is still “uncertain” whether Wesley Clark will testify or not

With a majority of votes, the judges granted the prosecution's motion to postpone until next week the testimony of former FRY president at the trial of six Serbian officials charged with Kosovo crimes. The Appeals Chamber dismissed the prosecution's appeal against the Trial Chamber’s decision to remove General Wesley Clark from the prosecution witness list because of unacceptable terms set by the US Government

Of over three thousand judgments against VJ personnel in Kosovo in the first half of 1999, some ninety percent pertain to draft-dodging and soldiers going AWOL. The rest are for crimes against civilians, but not murders, says Radomir Gojovic, testifying in Ojdanic’s defense

Branko Krga, former chief of General Staff, claims that in 1999 the VJ had no interest in expelling Albanian civilians from Kosovo, as seen from the fact that it set up points where the Albanian people were to be ‘assisted’. Kosovo Albanians who testified in this case claimed that at those points they were directed towards Albania and Macedonia

Ojdanic’s defense witness Branko Krga claims that when the General Staff issued a proclamation to the Albanians urging them not to leave Kosovo. It showed ‘a sincere intent of the Army to prevent the exodus of the refugees’, the witness said. The prosecutor refutes that, noting that the proclamation was issued only in Serbian

The testimony of the former chief of the 1st Operations Administration in the VJ General Staff is marked by the dispute over a document, signed by Ojdanic, where mention is made of an order of the Joint Command of the military and police for Kosovo. The defense claims this body didn’t exist while the prosecutor alleges at least four of the six accused were actually members

The prosecution contests the claims made by the military expert testifying as General Ojdanic’s defense witness. General Radinovic says that during the war the General Staff, headed by the accused general, was just ’a working body’ of the Supreme Command. It had no power to command the army, he claims

The cross-examination of Dragoljub Ojadnic’s last defense witness finished with the debate about the role played by ’armed non-Albanian population’ – local Kosovo Serbs who were identified as perpetrators of crimes against Albanian civilians in the first half of 1999 by many prosecution witnesses. General Nebojsa Pavkovic’s defense will call its first witnesses next week

Nebojsa Pavkovic’s defense didn’t present the opening statement, but it did indicate during the testimony of its first two witnesses that it would prove Pavkovic’s innocence by arguing that the Albanians left Kosovo mainly in fear of NATO, that there had been no Joint Command and that the accused general tried to remove the perpetrators of crimes from the VJ

Pavkovic’s defense witness claims that the Joint Command for Kosovo merely coordinated the operation of the military and police. It is illogical, he contends, that a body that did not command should be called ‘a command’, but he says that he didn’t have enough ‘military curiosity’ to investigate this issue. Pavkovic will not be testifying in his defense

The defense of the former 3rd Army commander called just seven witnesses and rested its case this week after the accused decided not to testify in his own defense. Ljubisa Stojmirovic, 3rd Army chief of staff, testified as the last defense witness

Unlike Nikola Sainovic’s defense, General Lazarevic doesn’t contest the authenticity of the documents from 1999 purportedly issued by the Joint Command. Lazarevic claims that they were military orders and that the politicians and the Ministry of Interior had nothing to do with them. His operatives, he says, used the term joint command ‘clumsily’, because the army and police had separate commands during the whole war

General Vladimir Lazarevic explained today how in the Pristina Corps he had introduced measures to protect civilians that ’were unprecedented in military science’. Two days ago, Lazarevic said that the VJ in Kosovo in 1999 spared the civilians even when it could have fired on them under the international law of war

After the presiding judge warned the accused general that his evidence was a ’long journey through documents’ about events in general terms rather than an account of the specific events in the field, the accused testifying in his own defense mentioned one of the incidents listed in the indictment: the killing of several hundred Albanians in the villages of Korenica and Meja. He offered an alibi in his defense

General Vladimir Lazarevic says it would have been better if he and other high-ranking military officers used the term ‘combined’ rather than ‘joint command’ in their orders. Had they done so, they ’wouldn’t be where they are now’, before the Tribunal

General Lazarevic claims that the army didn’t command the groups of armed local Serbs, identified by prosecution witnesses as the perpetrators of the gravest of crimes in Kosovo. According to him, those were Civilian Protection units, and there were Albanians in their ranks

Despite numerous complaints about the excessive use of force by the Serbian security forces in 1999 and despite the admission of some high-ranking officers that this had happened, General Vladimir Lazarevic claims that the army troops deployed in Kosovo fired ‘a single grenade from a single tank’ on the Albanian villages before the NATO campaign began. Lazarevic is testifying in his own defense at the Kosovo Six trial

As his testimony in his own defense draws to a close, General Lazarevic says that he knew in 1999 that many people left Kosovo, but claims that the army had nothing to do with it. Moreover, he and the members of his staff ‘were concerned over this fact’

General Krsman Jelic confirms Vladimir Lazarevic’s evidence, saying the OSCE monitoring mission complained only once to the army about the ’excessive use of force’: this concerned the firing of a single tank shell. But, Jelic contends, even that complaint was not justified

One of General Vladimir Lazarevic’s subordinates claims that the army troops didn’t commit any serious crimes such as killings and expulsions of civilians in the Kacanik and Urosevac area in 1999. The army didn’t enter in the villages after the clashes with the KLA. According to him, the police was in charge of ‘mopping up in the villages’

Commander of the 243rd Brigade of the VJ says his units rarely provided support to police forces attacking the Albanian villages. Soldiers never entered these villages after the attacks, he added, prompting the defense of Sreten Lukic, police general, to show him several documents he had signed painting a rather different picture of the events

Although he admits that the army was deployed around the village of Kotlina on the day when, according to the indictment, the bodies of 17 Albanian young men were thrown into wells and blown up, the commander of the 243rd Brigade still maintains that his men couldn’t see what was going on down there because of the hilly terrain and couldn’t hear any explosions because they were wearing protective earphones

General Bozidar Delic claims that he and his soldiers made considerable effort to convince the Kosovo Albanians not to leave Kosovo; but they rarely listened. One of the ’excuses’ they used was that they had run out of fuel by the time they reached the border. They wouldn’t have enough fuel to return home, they said, and it was easier for them to just cross the border

General Bozidar Delic claims the military police escorted perpetrators of the crimes to the military court in Pristina even when they had to pass through the territory under the KLA control. At times, this led to casualties among the suspects and their escorts

Contesting General Bozidar Delic’s claim that his soldiers could not have done any looting even if they had wanted to because they carried a lot of combat equipment and had nowhere to put their ‘war booty’, the prosecutor asked a rhetoric question: how much space do money and golden jewelry take?

Although several prosecution witnesses linked him with the attack on the village of Meja – the indictment alleges that more than 300 Kosovo Albanians were killed there – Vladimir Lazarevic’s defense witness claims that he didn’t issue any orders. He heard about the mass execution of civilians from this village last year, when the Kosovo Six trial began

Describing General Vladimir Lazarevic’s character, VJ lieutenant-colonel Vladimir Marinkovic said that Lazarevic ‘was and remains his ideal for his military career and humanity’. The Kosovo Six trial continues on 16 January 2008

General Dragan Zivanovic testifies in the defense of Vladimir Lazarevic, his former commander. He has already given evidence at the trial of Haradinaj, Balaj and Brahimaj as a prosecution witness. Today he repeated the allegations about KLA crimes and VJ's impeccable treatment of civilians in Kosovo. Each soldier carried on his person a 'pocket edition' of Geneva Conventions, he says

The prosecutor showed a series of VJ documents in an effort to prove that local Kosovo Serbs who were involved in crimes against Albanians in 1999, as the prosecution witnesses claimed, were under the military command. The documents are orders issued to the ’armed non-Serb population’. The witness, former commander of the 125th Brigade, claims the orders are mere ’empty words’ that have never been implemented in the field

Milan Kotur, retired VJ colonel, claims that the term ’Joint command of the army and police’ was used in a wrong sense. The mistake was not corrected so as not to offend the person who had coined the term. According to the prosecution, the existence of this body is an indication that ethnic cleansing was carried out in Kosovo, and that it was orchestrated by Slobodan Milosevic and his close associates

In his cross-examination, former VJ colonel Milan Kotur denied that he had disclosed details of a VJ plan for ‘the elimination of the KLA and removal of Albanians from Kosovo for good’ to a Kosovo Verification Mission liaison officer. He claims he gave Richard Ciaglinski a ‘blank map’ without any lines indicating where the Serbian forces were attacking the KLA

Two prosecution witnesses claimed that in late April 1999 former chief of security in the VJ 52nd Artillery Brigade Sergej Perovic saw about twenty bodies of Kosovo Albanians in the Djakovica area. Perovic says he didn’t hear of any crimes; he ‘thinks’ he never filed any reports about the crimes

According to General Vladimir Lazarevic's defense witness, in 1999 the military judiciary indicted 230 VJ personnel for crimes against Kosovo Albanians. He didn’t say how many of them were tried and convicted

General Lazarevic’s defense witness claims that on 27 April 1999 his soldiers didn't commit any crimes in the village of Korenica. Only in 2001, he said, did he receive 'unconfirmed information' that 'someone killed some civilians in some sectors'

Former military prosecutor in the Pristina Corps command says that in 1999 he was able to do his job with full independence. He would have charged anyone – including General Lazarevic – had they tried to influence him

Although the military leadership in Belgrade received regular reports from late April 1999 that police was not willing to comply with Slobodan Milosevic’s orders and agree to be subordinated to the army, General Lazarevic regularly issued orders to the MUP in late May. According to the Pristina Corps operations chief, Lazarevic did so ’because he hoped’ they would finally agree to be resubordinated to the army

The first witness to testify in the defense of police general Sreten Lukic described how the KLA used civilians for its purposes in a number of ways. On terrorists’ orders, the women with babies in their arms would leave the villages that the police was planning to attack to ’confuse the police officers with their hysteric behavior’

Former number two official in the state security service in Pristina says the Serbian intelligence in Kosovo knew that until the NATO air strikes began the international community was training the KLA and put location finders at Serbian positions. Throughout the year of 1999, on the other hand, he received no reports of any crimes committed by the Serbian police

Former state security officer in Kosovo says that Kosovo Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova was not under house arrest during the NATO campaign and was not pressured into negotiating with the Serbian officials. He did so voluntarily and sought police protection himself

Police general Sreten Lukic's defense witness contradicts the testimony of his colleague from the Interior Ministry. In the spring of 1999, the two of them transferred the bodies of Albanians from Kosovo to Serbia. Their stories are similar, the only difference being that one witness said that he had received his instructions from General Djordjevic and the other that he had been told what to do by Lukic

General Lukic’s defense witness today described what the role of the MUP Staff for Kosovo in 1999 was not, rather than what it was. The presiding judge warned the witness, police colonel Miroslav Mijatovic, that his evidence indicated this was a body of ‘very ill-defined contours’, and that he was unclear as to its purpose. At the time of the NATO campaign, Mijatovic was the deputy of Sreten Lukic, who was the head of the MUP staff for Kosovo

According to General Sreten Lukic’s defense counsel, there is a mistake in the recommendation made by the minister of the interior for the promotion of Sreten Lukic in May 1999: Lukic is said to have ‘commanded and controlled’ police troops in Kosovo. The mistake occurred because the clerks who drafted the document did not have accurate information

According to Sreten Lukic’s defense, the police deserves credit for the investigation of the murder of five Albanians in the village of Zegra near Gnjilane; the investigation resulted in the prosecution of Vlado Zmajevic, who was finally sentenced to 20 years in prison. General Nebojsa Pavkovic’s defense tried to prove that he had personally ordered the investigation of this crime

Testifying as police general Sreten Lukic's defense witness, Dusan Gavranic says the police secured the convoy of Albanians leaving the village of Prilepnica near Gnjilane. ‘Nobody could have convinced them to stay’, he says. The man who led the convoy testified for the prosecution that he had been beaten up on that way to the border

Police general Sreten Lukic’s defense witness claims he saw a CNN reporter hitting an Albanian woman from Kosovo at the Serbian-Macedonian border. She didn’t want to ’testify falsely’ in front of his camera and say that she was expelled from Kosovo by the police, the witness claims

In his evidence in the defense of General Sreten Lukic, former border police officer says some 430,000 Albanians fled Kosovo via the Vrbnica border crossing. Most of them discarded their ID cards in order to ‘show their disrespect for Serbia’ and make it easier to obtain asylum in Western countries

When the witness called by police general Sreten Lukic’s defense tried to shift the blame for the crimes committed by the irregulars indirectly to the army, the defense of military general Nebojsa Pavkovic showed him a document in which the interior minister ordered the MUP Staff for Kosovo to ’put volunteer and paramilitary units under its control for possible future deployment’

In an effort to prove that all PJP members treated civilians in Kosovo professionally, former police officer from Pec testifying in General Sreten Lukic’s defense, claims that a colleague was removed from the unit just because he had robbed a tobacconist

The prosecution argues that the army and the police killed KLA prisoners on the spot. The witness testifying in the defense of police general Sreten Lukic, however, says there were no prisoners because the terrorists carried away their wounded and dead fellow fighters. ‘What happened in Racak then?’ asked the prosecutor

Testifying in the defense of General Sreten Lukic, former employee in the Border Police Administration of the Serbian Interior Ministry said that in 1999, Albanians had been permitted to leave Kosovo even without passport because an emergency situation. He compared it to the exodus of the Serbs who had left parts of Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina; they too had no passports

Former investigative judge of the Pristina District Court claims that police often filed criminal reports against unknown perpetrators of crimes in Kosovo. Her evidence indicates that Albanian unknown perpetrators were easier to identify than Serbian ones. The killer of Albanian politician Fehmi Agani remains unidentified; not so Hashim Taqi, current prime minister of Kosovo, who was identified as a perpetrator in an attack on a police vehicle. He was subsequently tried and convicted in absentia

In her examination-in chief, former investigative judge from Pristina Danica Marinkovic implied that in Kosovo in 1999 the police regularly arrested the perpetrators of crimes, even if they were police officers. However, when she answered the prosecutor’s questions today, she said that there were only two cases where the police officers had been arrested for killing Albanians

Former police officer from Srbica testifies in the defense of police general Sreten Lukic. In late March 1999, he took part in an anti-terrorist action in that municipality. He doesn’t know which PJP unit he fought with or who commanded the unit. He saw between 100 and 5,000 Albanian refugees on that occasion, he says

The witness testifying in the defense of police general Sreten Lukic admits that from late March to mid-April 1999 extra trains ran from Pristina to Macedonia. The prosecution alleges that the extra trains were put in service to forcibly transfer Kosovo Albanians

Sreten Lukic’s defense witness denies the former police general had command over the police units in Kosovo. The accused general occasionally sent ’instructive dispatches’ but never issued orders to chiefs of Secretariats of the Interior in the province, the witness clarifies

Police general Sreten Lukic joined Nikola Sainovic, Dragoljub Ojdanic and Nebojsa Pavkovic and also decided not to testify in his own defense at the Kosovo Six trial. The Tribunal announced today that General Pavkovic was granted seven-day provisional release for 'humanitarian reasons'

The defense of the accused police general doesn’t deny that in the spring of 1999 the MUP personnel committed a number of mass killings in Kosovo. However, according to the defense, the crimes were not a part of a plan and not many persons within the police knew of them at the time

Presiding judge asked Lukic’s defense witness to clarify his claim that Albanians gathered in the center of Pec in fear of NATO air strikes before they left Kosovo, while Serbs never did that although they were scared for the same reason

Despite the objections of the defense, the prosecution insists that the statements given by Nebojsa Pavkovic and Sreten Lukic to the OTP be tendered into evidence. The defense believes these interviews cannot be used to prove the guilt of the other four accused

The Trial Chamber hearing the case of six former Serbian officials charged with crimes in Kosovo in 1999 notes that the statement General Vladimir Lazarevic gave to the OTP could be used against his co-defendants because he testified in his own defense and was available for the cross-examination of other defense counsel

Playing down the role of the police in Kosovo, former commander of the Special Police Units ’Belgrade detachment’, testifying in the defense of Sreten Lukic, stated that he ’relied’ only on military commanders in the course of the attacks on Albanian villages. He left them to issue orders, as ’a gentleman’ and at times, he engaged in ‘creative decision-making’, without any orders from Sreten Lukic, head of the MUP Kosovo Staff. The defense of the VJ generals contested his allegations in the cross-examination

Expert witness testifying in the defense of police general Sreten Lukic today had to defend the accused from himself: before he was indicted, Sreten Lukic was interviewed by the OTP investigators. He told them that in 1999 he had been one of the commanders of the Special Units of the Police (PJPs). The defense has been contesting this claim vigorously throughout its case

In the two days of his evidence, Serbian historian Branimir Jokic contested the report of Andras Riedlmayer, a US expert on the Ottoman cultural heritage. Riedlmayer’s report dealt with the destruction of mosques and other religious buildings in Kosovo in 1999. Today, as his evidence drew to a close, Jokic stated that he didn’t consider himself ‘an expert with the expertise’ in Muslim religious buildings

US statistician Eric Fruits contested the findings of his colleague Patrick Ball on behalf of the defense teams of the Kosovo Six. Ball testified for the prosecution stating that the increased number of Albanian refugees and Albanians who were killed in 1999 coincided with the increased activities of Serbian army and police

General Dragoljub Ojdanic’s defense presents an expert report drafted by Belgrade professor Zivojin Aleksic, to challenge the credibility of a report on the crimes against Kosovo Albanians authored by General Nebojsa Pavkovic and allegedly sent to the VJ General Staff in May 1999. Pavkovic’s defense in turn challenges the expertise of this witness

After ten months and 119 witnesses, the defense teams of the six former Serbian officials charged with crimes in Kosovo rest their cases. Before the trial ends, the Trial Chamber will hear the evidence of a few witnesses it has called

General Milan Djakovic, witness called by the Trial Chamber at the Kosovo Six trial, claims that the term ‘joint command’ was coined by him and his commander Nebojsa Pavkovic to avoid other formulations that were too long. This body didn’t have any command role, despite the implication inherent in the ‘abbreviation’

In the first round of closing arguments, the prosecution claims it has proven beyond reasonable doubt that in 1999 over 800,000 Kosovo Albanians were expelled and thousands killed in a joint criminal enterprise headed by Slobodan Milosevic. The accused Milutinovic, Sainovic, Ojdanic, Pavkovic, Lazarevic and Lukic were part of the joint criminal enterprise

According to the prosecution, if the Trial Chamber finds the six accused Serbian political, military and police officials guilty of crimes against Kosovo Albanians in 1999, they should get twenty years or life in prison. Milan Milutinovic’s defense begins its closing arguments

The defense teams of the former Serbian president and the deputy prime minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia claim their clients are not responsible for the crimes against Kosovo Albanians in 1999, denying any links between their clients with Slobodan Milosevic; the prosecution claims Milosevic was the ringleader of a joint criminal enterprise aimed at ethnically cleansing Kosovo

As the defense continues with the closing argument at the trial of the Kosovo Six, the defense teams of the former Chief of the General Staff and the former 3rd Army commander call for the acquittal of their clients, noting that they are ’unjustly accused’ and that their responsibility ‘is nowhere near to being proven’

Had General Vladimir Lazarevic known of a plan to expel Albanians from Kosovo in 1999, his subordinates in the Pristina Corps under his command at the time would not have sent the refugees back to their villages, the defense contends urging the Trial Chamber to acquit their client

Playing down the role of the police general Sreten Lukic, his defense counsel remind the court that witnesses described Lukic as ‘smallest cog’, ’the tenth violin’ and ’just an ordinary adjutant’. Like the defense teams of the other five accused, Lukic’s defense urges for his acquittal

In its reply to the closing arguments presented by the defense of the six former Serbian officials charged with crimes against Albanians in 1999, the prosecution argues once again why the Trial Chamber should sentence the accused to terms of imprisonment ranging from 20 years to life. After the so-called rejoinder – the response of the defense to the prosecution’s rebuttal – the judges withdrew to deliberate

According to the judgment handed down to the Kosovo Six, the prosecution has proven the existence of a joint criminal enterprise aimed at expelling Albanian civilians from Kosovo in 1999, but not all accused participated in the same way in the implementation of that goal. Milan Milutinovic has been acquitted of all charges. Nikola Sainovic and generals Pavkovic and Lukic have been sentenced to 22 years, and Dragoljub Ojdanic and Vladimir Lazarevic to 15 years in prison

The Trial Chamber has taken into consideration the formal authority over the army and the police the six former Serbian officials had in Kosovo. They faced trial for crimes against Kosovo Albanians in 1999. Furthermore, the Trial Chamber in its judgment took into account the closeness of their ties with Slobodan Milosevic. This has left no doubt as to what Slobodan Milosevic's judgment for Kosovo crimes would have been like, had he lived to see the end of the trial

The defense of police general Sreten Lukic sought leave from the Appeals Chamber to tender into evidence a number of documents that had not been translated before the end of the Kosovo Six trial. The defense contends that the documents are very important as they show that during his stay on Kosovo the accused was ‘demoted by Slobodan Milosevic’s regime’

The Appeals Chamber today dismissed the motion filed by the former chief of the Serbian MUP for Kosovo Sreten Lukic to grant him a ‘time out’ and ‘a change of environment’. The defense asked the judges to allow the accused to go to Serbia for a while. This would make it easier for him to prepare for his continued detention and eventually, for his sentence. The Trial Chamber sentenced Lukic to 22 years in prison

There were no contention issues or pending motions at the status conference, but no mention either of a possible date for the appellate hearing in the case against Serb officials convicted of crimes on Kosovo in 1999

Former chief of the Yugoslav Army General Staff Dragoljub Ojdanic has withdrawn his appeal against the trial judgment. The Trial Chamber found Ojdanic guilty of the deportation and forcible transfer as crimes against humanity and sentenced him to 15 years in prison

At the beginning of the appellate hearing in the case against former Serbian officials convicted for the crimes in Kosovo, Nikola Sainovic’s defense counsel denied his client’s close ties with Slobodan Milosevic. The defense counsel argued that Milan Milutinovic should have been convicted, not his client. As he said, Milutinovic and Milosevic spent the 78 days of the NATO air campaign at the ‘command post’ with their wives

On the second day of the appellate hearing, US lawyer John Ackermann said it was ‘absurd’ to think that ‘intelligent and educated’ people like Slobodan Milosevic, Nebojsa Pavkovic and other Serbian and FRY officials would believe it was possible to expel thousands of Albanians from Kosovo and obtain international support for that. The prosecutor responded by saying it was this group of people that conceived and implemented the criminal plan to ethnically cleanse the province

The defense has asked the Appeals Chamber to acquit General Vladimir Lazarevic of aiding and abetting the expulsion of Kosovo Albanians. Invoking Momcilo Perisic’s case, the defense insisted there was no evidence that Lazarevic’s acts were ‘specifically directed’ at the commission of crimes. In his response, the prosecutor insisted that the findings in Perisic’s judgment should be rejected. Perisic’s appeal judgment diverges from the Tribunal’s jurisprudence, ‘undermines the respect of international law’ and is ‘contrary to the interests of justice’, the prosecutor argued

On Wednesday, General Vladimir Lazarevic’s defense tried to equate their client’s position with Momcilo Perisic, who was acquitted on appeal. On Thursday, the defense of police general Sreten Lukic called their client’s 22-year prison sentence to be quashed. The defense invoked the judgment acquitting Gotovina and Markac and the appellate judgment in which two former Rwandan ministers were acquitted of genocide

According to the prosecution, the sentences imposed by the Trial Chamber on the former Serbian officials – 22 and 15 years in prison – don’t reflect the gravity of the crimes and the role played by the accused. The prosecution has asked for the ‘severest sentence provided by the Statute’. The defense lawyers argued that the request was ‘impermissible, unethical and non-collegial’. The accused had an opportunity to address the judges. General Lazarevic’s thanked them in seven languages

Former Chief of the VJ General Staff was first sentenced to 15 years in prison, and then accepted the findings in the judgment in order to get the prosecution to drop its appeal. He was then granted early release by President Meron, only to repudiate his earlier acceptance of his guilt as soon as he arrived in Belgrade

Five years after the Trial Chamber found Nikola Sainovic, Nebojsa Pavkovic, Sreten Lukic and Vladimir Lazarevic guilty of the crimes in Kosovo in 1999, the Appeals Chamber will deliver the final judgment for Kosovo four on 23 January 2014

Judge Liu’s Appeals Chamber confirmed the findings of the trial judgment on the existence of a joint criminal enterprise aimed at the permanent removal of Albanian civilians from Kosovo in 1999. The sentences of three of the four former Serbian officials were slightly reduced nevertheless. The judges did not accept the conclusion of Judge Meron’s Appeals Chamber in the case against Momcilo Perisic that the ‘specific direction’ was an element of the aiding and abetting mode of liability

According to the decision issued in March 2014, Nikola Sainovic, former deputy prime minister of the FR Yugoslavia, will serve the remainder of his sentence in Sweden. The decision was not made public immediately

The defense of the former FRY deputy prime minister has filed a motion for their client's release on 26 August 2015. The accused will have served two thirds of his 18-year prison sentence, and the Tribunal has usually granted such motions

The Appeals Chamber has ruled that the defense of the former chief of the MUP Staff for Kosovo Sreten Lukic did not produce any new evidence which would merit a review of the appellate judgment. Lukic was sentenced to 20 years for the crimes against Kosovo Albanians in 1999

According to the decision of Theodor Meron, the President of the Residual Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, Serbian police general Sreten Lukic has been transferred to Poland to serve the rest of his sentence. Meron's decision was disclosed today. Lukic got 20 years in prison for crimes against Kosovo Albanians in 1999