The second Albanian witness testifying in Milosevic's defense claims that the KLA systematically ordered Albanians to leave Kosovo in 1999, while the Yugoslav Army "protected the population and handed out chocolate to children". Saban Fazliu, former forestry worker and police collaborator, labels prosecution witnesses who testified that the opposite was the case either "KLA terrorists", "drug traffickers" or both


According to Milosevic's defense witness, the KLA objective after 1995 was to initiate the conflict in Kosovo - that is why they started killing innocent police officers. When NATO launched its campaign in 1999, the KLA ordered the Albanian population to leave Kosovo "in order for the world to think that they were being expelled by the Serbs."

Witness Saban Fazliu, who as a forestry worker in the Urosevac area spent a lot of his time in the hills, says that in 1998 he noticed KLA supporters "going into the hills in larger numbers" and that he would report the people with weapons to the Urosevac police, with whom he collaborated on a regular basis. "We would report everything that was against the interests of the people," Fazliu said, adding that this was the "tradition of Albanian Muslims".

And while, according to the witness, the KLA systematically ordered Albanians to leave Kosovo, the Yugoslav Army "protected the people, handed out chocolate to children and provided food". "I never saw the army did anything bad," he added. When Milosevic gave him names of Kosovo Albanians who testified as prosecution witnesses and claimed the exact opposite, Fazliu said they were either "KLA terrorists", "drug traffickers" or both.

As for allegations made by prosecution witnesses about the attacks of the Serbian forces on Albanian villages in the Urosevac area and murders of Albanians, the witness did not hear anything about that. He likewise never heard anything about any Albanians being maltreated in the Urosevac police station in the 90's – the same police force that he provided with information about the situation up in the hills.

Fazliu says his daughter was abducted five or six months ago because he "decided to come to The Hague to tell the truth," adding he knew he would be "a dead man after completing the testimony." Fazliu was, however, unable to give the prosecutor even an approximate date for the abduction of his daughter. He claims he reported the abduction to the UNMIK police. The prosecutor indicated he would check the claim before the witness continues his testimony tomorrow.

The prosecutor stressed the fact that Fazliu, who reported Albanians possessing illegal weapons to the police, himself had such a weapon in 1991. According to Fazliu's testimony, he had been attacked that year because he worked the fields with Serbs after the local leaders prohibited Albanians from doing that. He claims he fired on one of the men who attacked him and that he was put on trial for that, because "the courts abided by the rules."

His testimony will end tomorrow morning. Milosevic will then call his next defense witness, leader of the Serbian Radical Party , indicted by the ICTY Vojislav Seselj.

Sharing