War crimes in the Kosovo War The War crimes in the Kosovo War were a series of war crimes committed during the Kosovo War ( early 1998 – 11 June 1999 ) . Yugoslav security forces killed many Albanian civilians during the war ; there were also attacks on Yugoslav security forces and moderate Albanians by the Kosovo Liberation Army ( UÇK ) . According to Human Rights Watch , " the vast majority of the violations over the past year ( January 1998 – April 1999 ) are attributable to Yugoslav Police or the Yugoslav Army " , and violations also include abuses committed by Albanian militants , such as kidnappings and summary executions . In Serbia , Serb policemen who fought separatists in Kosovo are still considered war heroes , while in Kosovo some Albanian militants were awarded the " Hero of Kosovo " title . Background . Kosovo Albanians constitute a majority of the population of Kosovo . During the 1970s and 1980s , thousands of Serbs and Montenegrins left Kosovo , largely due to the economic situation and repression by the Kosovo Albanian government and population . " 57 , 000 Serbs have left Kosovo in the last decade " due to murder , rape and persecution – wrote the New York Times in 1982 . Slobodan Milošević gained political power by pledging to discontinue this repression . Milošević abolished Kosovo ' s autonomy in 1989 . With his rise to power , the Albanians started boycotting state institutions and ignoring the laws of the Republic of Serbia . Serbia tried to maintain its political control over the province . With the formation of the Kosovo Liberation Army , a large number of the Kosovo Albanians became radicalized . The Serbian military ' s response was brutal . In 1997 , international sanctions were applied to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia because of the alleged persecution of Kosovo ' s Albanians by Yugoslav security forces . Kosovo Albanian war crimes . Kidnappings and summary executions . In some villages under Albanian control in 1998 , militants drove ethnic - Serbs from their homes . Some of those who remained are unaccounted for and are presumed to have been abducted by the KLA and killed . The KLA detained an estimated 85 Serbs during its 19 July 1998 attack on Orahovac . 35 of these were subsequently released but the others remained . On 22 July 1998 , the KLA briefly took control of the Belaćevac mine near the town of Obilić . Nine Serb mineworkers were captured that day and they remain on the International Committee of the Red Cross ' s list of the missing and are presumed to have been killed . In August 1998 , 22 Serbian civilians were reportedly killed in the village of Klečka , where the police claimed to have discovered human remains and a kiln used to cremate the bodies . In September 1998 , Serbian police collected 34 bodies of people believed to have been seized and murdered by the KLA , among them some ethnic Albanians , at Lake Radonjić near Glođane ( Gllogjan ) in what became known as the Lake Radonjić massacre . According to the International Committee of the Red Cross and the ICTY , 97 Kosovo Serbs were kidnapped in 1998 . According to a Serbian government report , from 1 January 1998 to 10 June 1999 the UÇK killed 988 people and kidnapped 287 ; of those killed , 335 were civilians , 351 were soldiers , 230 were police and 72 were unidentified ; by nationality , 87 of the civilians killed were Serbs , 230 were Albanians , and 18 were of other nationalities . Massacres . Incomplete list of massacres : Destruction of settlements , churches and cemeteries . In the days after Yugoslav forces withdrew from Kosovo , over 200 , 000 homes that belonged to Serbs were demolished by ethnic Albanians with the help of the KLA . Since the war ended , many graves containing the bodies of Serbs have been desecrated by ethnic Albanians . No one has ever been brought to justice for these crimes . During and after the Kosovo conflict , hundreds of Serbian Orthodox churches have been destroyed at the hands of Albanians . Ethnic cleansing . During the Kosovo War , over 90 , 000 Serbian and other non - Albanian refugees fled the war - torn province . and in the days after the Yugoslav Army withdrew , over 200 , 000 Serb and other non - Albanians were forced from the province by Kosovo Albanians . In 2000 , German war photographer Frauke Eigen created an exhibition about the clothing and belongings of the victims of ethnic cleansing in the Kosovo War . Eigen ' s photographs were taken onsite during the exhumation of mass graves , and were later used as evidence by the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague . Use of child soldiers . Around 10 % of all KLA insurgents engaged in fighting during the conflict were under the age of 18 , with some being as young as 13 . The release of the documents triggered international outrage and spawned an investigation by EULEX into the trafficking . This investigation was criticized by Marty who believed that an independent organization rather than EULEX should look into the crimes . EULEX asked Dick Marty for evidence , most of which was in the form of witness statements . Marty refused to do so until a credible witness protection system was set up to ensure that those who delivered evidence are not the victims of revenge attacks by the UÇK and radical Albanians . Marty revealed that the Albanian authorities had attempted to prevent any investigation into Organ trafficking . Hashim Thaci has denied any crimes took place . Yugoslav war crimes . Persecution and deportations . During the armed conflict in 1998 , the Yugoslav Army and Serbian police allegedly used excessive and random force , which resulted in property damage , the displacement of population and death of civilians . Some claim that Belgrade unleashed Operation Horseshoe in the summer of 1998 , in which hundreds of thousands of Albanians were allegedly driven from their homes ( though this is highly controversial , with many scholars dismissing Operation Horseshoe as anti - Serb propaganda ) . The withdrawal of the Organization for Security and Co - operation in Europe monitors on 20 March 1999 , together with the start of NATO ' s bombing campaign , allegedly encouraged Milošević to implement a " campaign of expulsions " . With the beginning of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia , Operation Horseshoe was supposedly implemented , though the Yugoslav government maintained that the refugee crisis was caused by the bombings . The Yugoslav Army , Serbian police and Serb paramilitary forces in the spring of 1999 , in an allegedly organized manner , initiated a broad campaign of violence against Albanian civilians in order to expel them from Kosovo and thus maintain the political control of Belgrade over the province . According to the legally binding verdict of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia , the Federal Army and Serbian police systematically attacked Albanian - populated villages after the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia that began on 24 March 1999 ; abused , robbed and killed civilians , ordering them to go to Albania or Montenegro , and burned their houses and destroyed their property . Nemanja Stjepanović claimed that within the campaign of violence , Kosovo Albanians were expelled from their homes , murdered , sexually assaulted , and had their religious buildings destroyed . They also alleged that Yugoslav forces committed numerous war crimes during the implementation of a " joint criminal enterprise " whose aim was to " through the use of violence and terror , force a significant number of Kosovo Albanians to leave their homes and cross the border in order for the state government to retain control over Kosovo . " The supposed ethnic cleansing of the Albanian population was allegedly performed in the following way : first the Army surrounded a location , followed by shelling , then the police entered the village and often with them and the Army , and then crimes occurred ( murders , rapes , beatings , expulsions . . . ) . According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees , by June 1999 , the Yugoslav military , Serbian police and paramilitaries had expelled around 850 , 000 Albanians from Kosovo , and several hundred thousand more were internally displaced , in addition to those displaced prior to March . Approximately 440 , 000 refugees crossed the border into Albania and 320 , 000 fled to Macedonia , while Bosnia and Herzegovina received more than 30 , 000 . A key point in the arguments against the existence of Operation Horseshoe is that Serbia - proper itself hosted around 70 , 000 Albanian refugees Presiding Judge Iain Bonomy , who imposed the sentence , said that " deliberate actions of these forces during the campaign provoked the departure of at least 700 , 000 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo in the short period from late March to early June 1999 . " Destruction of settlements . The Yugoslav Army indiscriminately attacked Kosovo Albanian villages . Police and military forces partially or completely had destroyed thousands of Albanian villages in Kosovo by burning or shell ing them . According to a UNHCR survey , nearly 40 % of all residential houses in Kosovo were heavily damaged or completely destroyed by the end of the war . Out of a total of 237 , 842 houses , 45 , 768 were heavily damaged and 46 , 414 were destroyed . In particular , residences in the city of Peć was heavily damaged . More than 80 % of the 5 , 280 houses in the city were heavily damaged ( 1 , 590 ) or destroyed ( 2 , 774 ) . Religious objects were also damaged or destroyed . According to the report of the Physicians for Human Rights , there were 155 destroyed mosques in Kosovo in August 1999 based on claims from Albanian refugees . Identity cleansing . Identity cleansing was a strategy allegedly employed by the government of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War . Identity cleansing is defined as " confiscation of personal identification , passports , and other such documents to make it difficult or impossible for those driven out to return " . Expelled Kosovo Albanians claimed that they were systematically stripped of identity and property documents including passports , land titles , automobile license plates , identity cards and other documents . In conjunction with the policy of expelling ethnic Albanians from the province , the Yugoslavs would confiscate all documents that indicated the identity of those being expelled . Physicians for Human Rights reports that nearly 60 % of respondents to its survey observed Yugoslav forces removing or destroying personal identification documents . Human Rights Watch also documented the common practice of " identity cleansing " : refugees expelled toward Albania were frequently stripped of their identity documents and forced to remove the license plates from their vehicles . The occurrence of these acts suggested that the government was trying to block their return . In addition to confiscating the relevant documents from their holders , efforts were also made to destroy any actual birth records ( and other archives ) which were maintained by governmental agencies , so as to make the " cleansing " complete ( this latter tactic sometimes being referred to as archival cleansing ) . Massacres of civilians . Incomplete list of massacres : Cover - up . Soon after NATO started bombing Yugoslavia , Slobodan Milošević allegedly ordered that all bodies in Kosovo that could be of interest to The Hague Tribunal should be removed . According to allegations , the Yugoslav Army systematically transported the corpses of Albanians to the Trepča Mines near Kosovska Mitrovica , where their remains were allegedly cremated . Thus , according to one source , it was estimated that between 1 , 200 and 1 , 500 bodies were burned in the Trepča Mines . However , these allegations surrounding the Trepča mines turned out to be false . However , it is known that some corpses of Kosovo Albanians were transported into Central Serbia , where the bodies were buried in mass - graves near Belgrade . In May 2001 , the Serbian government announced that 86 bodies of Kosovo Albanians were thrown into the river Danube during the Kosovo War . After four months of excavations , Serbian forensic - experts located at least seven mass graves and some 430 bodies ( including the corpses of women and children ) in Central Serbia . Those sites included graves at Batajnica near Belgrade , at Petrovo Selo in eastern Serbia and near Perućac Dam in western Serbia . So far , about 800 remains of Albanians killed and buried in mass graves in Serbia have been exhumed and returned to their families in Kosovo . Most of the bodies were discovered near Special Anti - Terrorist police bases where Serbian Anti - Terrorism units were stationed and trained in clandestine operations . As a witness in the trial of eight police officers for war crimes against Albanian civilians during the Suva Reka massacre , Dragan Karleuša , the investigator of the Ministry of Interior of Serbia , testified that there are more graves in Serbia . He commented , " why would they remove bodies in this way if the people had died normally , " and concluded that they did not die normally and that the campaign to remove the bodies was , in fact , a cover - up for a " terrible crime " . Other . Summary killings of prominent ethnic Albanian leaders and intellectuals have also been reported ( including Bajram Kelmendi ) . NATO . Use of depleted uranium . During NATO ' s bombing campaign , munitions containing depleted uranium were used on targets within Yugoslavia . In 2001 , Carla Del Ponte , then the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia , said that NATO ' s use of depleted uranium in the former - Yugoslavia could be investigated as a possible war crime . Louise Arbour , Del Ponte ' s predecessor as chief prosecutor , created a small , internal committee , made up of staff lawyers , to assess the allegation . Their findings , that were accepted and endorsed by Del Ponte , concluded that : Civilian casualties . The Serbian government and a number of international pressure groups ( e . g . , Amnesty International ) claimed that NATO had carried out war crimes by bombing civilians . In total the number of civilian casualties caused by the NATO bombing stood at 2 , 500 according to Serb sources , while the military and police casualties stood at only 40 % of that number at 1 , 031 . Incomplete list of civilian casualties caused by NATO : Aftermath . Refugees . An estimated 200 , 000 Serbs and Roma fled Kosovo after the war . Romani people were also driven out after being harassed by Albanians . The Yugoslav Red Cross registered 247 , 391 mostly Serb refugees by November 1999 . Killings . According to Human Rights Watch , as " many as one thousand Serbs and Roma have been murdered or have gone missing since 12 June 1999 . " The notorious Gnjilane Group , which was active in Gnjilane , committed brutal crimes and murdered numerous ethnic - Serbs during the months of June – October 1999 , even after KFOR had arrived . According to a Serbian government report , in the period from 10 June 1999 – 11 November 2001 , when NATO had been in control in Kosovo , 847 people were reported to have been killed and 1 , 154 kidnapped . This comprised both civilians and security forces personnel . Organ theft . Carla Del Ponte , a long - time ICTY chief prosecutor claimed in her book " " that there were instances of organ trafficking in 1999 . According to the book after the end of the war in 1999 , Kosovo Albanians were smuggling organs of between 100 and 300 Serbs and other minorities from the province to Albania . The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and Serbian War Crimes Tribunal are currently investigating these allegations , as numerous witnesses and new materials have recently emerged . Responding to this allegation , the head of the war crimes unit of Eulex ( the European Law and Justice Mission in Kosovo ) , Matti Raatikainen , claimed " The fact is that there is no evidence whatsoever in this case , no bodies . No witnesses . All the reports and media attention to this issue have not been helpful to us . In fact they have not been helpful to anyone . " He described these allegations as a " distraction " that prevented the war crimes unit from finding the remains of close to 2 , 000 individuals of Serb , Albanian , and Roma ethnicity still missing in the conflict . War crimes trials . Criminal prosecutions of Serbian leaders before the ICTY . Slobodan Milošević , along with Milan Milutinović , Nikola Šainović , Dragoljub Ojdanić and Vlajko Stojiljković were charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia ( ICTY ) with crimes against humanity including murder , forcible population transfer , deportation and " persecution on political , racial or religious grounds " . Further indictments were leveled in October 2003 against former armed forces chief of staff Nebojša Pavković , former army corps commander Vladimir Lazarević , former police official Vlastimir Đorđević and the current head of Serbia ' s public security , Sreten Lukić . All were indicted for crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war . Milosevic died in ICTY custody before sentencing . The Court has pronounced the following verdicts : Sainović , Pavković and Lukić were convicted as members of a " joint criminal enterprise " , while the others were convicted of aiding and abetting crimes . Domestic Trials . First cases . The first trials in Serbia & FRY regarding the atrocities against Kosovar Albanians had occurred in 2000 in front martial courts , as accounts of murder . The Niš Military Court had in late 2000 found guilty for the murder of 2 Albanian civilians on 28 March 1999 in the village of Gornja Sušica near Priština : Captain Dragiša Petrović and army reservists sergeant Nenad Stamenković and Tomica Jović . Petrović got 4 years and 10 months , while Stamenković and Jović sentenced to four and a half years each . The trial had dragged on as the Supreme Military Court had abolished the verdicts and issued a retrial , until finished in late 2003 in front of it when all three indictees were found guilty for the same crime , however their sentences increased – 9 years for Petrovic and 7 for Stamenkovic and Jovic each – guilty of a " war crime " . However , the very first domestic " war crimes " ( under that classification ) trial in FRY regarding Kosovo had occurred in 1999 – 02 , against a Yugoslav Army soldier called Ivan Nikolić , indicted for murdering 2 ethnic Albanians in a village near the Kosovan town of Podujevo called Penduh on 24 March 1999 . They were originally charged for murder , and being the very first trial regarding an atrocity committed against Albanians it was paved with a lot of controversy . Nikolic was originally acquitted of all charges , but in June 2000 the Supreme Court of Serbia had abolished the verdict and ordered for a retrial . Instead of murder , the indictment was changed by the prosecution mid - trial to " a war crime against civilian population " ( according to Article 142 of the FRY Criminal Code ) , paving the way for prosecution of war crimes against ethnic Albanians in Serbia and Yugoslavia . The trial , organized in front of the District Court in Prokuplje , finally ended with a guilty verdict in 2002 , Nikolic sentenced to 8 years of prison . Orahovac Case . One of the more known cases was that of Boban Petković and Đorđe Simić , due to the controversial stalling , both of whom are Serbian police reservists ; Petković was suspect of murder of 3 Albanian civilians in the village of Rija near Orahovac and Simić as an accomplice . Although the investigation was opened in June 1999 at the Prizren District Court , due to the withdrawal of Serbia ' s judiciary in favor of UNMIK it had opened up in the District Court of Požarevac in late ' 99 . A judgement was issued in mid 2000 and Petković was found guilty in two counts of murder and sentenced to 4 years and 10 months of prison , while Simić to 1 year as an accomplice . Serbia ' s Supreme Court had abolished the judgements in 2001 and ordered for a retrial . In a new trial , in which according to the new procedure the individuals were indicted for a " war crime " , the District Court of Pozarevac had sentenced Petkovic to 5 years of prison with obligatory psychiatric assistance , while acquitting Simic of all charges . The Supreme Court had considering both the Defense and the Prosecution again abolished the judgements in 2006 . The judicial reforms and new organization of Serbia ' s judicial system had caught up with the case , so it finally began in 2008 , under the High Court of Požarevac . However due to heavy procedural difficulties , demanding cooperation with the EULEX for evidence from the ground , as well as the indicteds ' lack of appearance in front of the court , the trial had reached a stalemate in 2011 and 2012 . As of 2013 , the case , which has attracted a great deal of controversy and criticism for not being handled within reasonable time , still remains open . War Crimes System . In dedication to the very big issue of prosecuting war crimes committed in the 1990s and due to their sensitive nature , Serbia had founded a special " War Crimes Prosecution " dedicated to investigating and prosecuting war crimes , as well as having special War Crimes divisions within its court system with specific panels . It is the only country in Former Yugoslavia which has done so , all the others prosecuting war crimes under normal judicial procedures . Suva Reka . Among the more notable results is the " Suva Reka Case " ( the Suva Reka massacre ) , the trial for began in 2006 . Ex policemen Milorad Nišavić and Slađan Čukarić and State security member Miroslav Petković were found guilty by the War Crimes Panel of the Belgrade High Court , for the murder of 49 or 50 Albanian civilians in Suva Reka on 26 March 1999 , including a total of 48 members of a Berisha family . Nišavić got 13 , Petković 15 and Čukarić 20 years of prison . Three other policemen were acquitted , while in a separate trial Suva Reka police commander Radojko Repanović was found guilty due to command responsibility and sentenced to 20 years of prison . Two other policemen were acquitted , as well as a 3rd one , against whom the prosecution had dropped the case mid - trial . In 2010 Belgrade ' s Appeal Court had confirmed all verdicts against the 6 directly responsible indicted , but has dismissed Repanovic ' s verdict and ordered for a retrial . One of the acquitted , the commander of the 37th Police Unit Radoslav Mitrović , remains in custody as of 2013 along with several other members suspect for other accounts of war crimes . Repanović was found guilty on same counts and sentenced to 20 years of prison in late 2010 by Belgrade ' s War Crimes Panel and in 2011 Belgrade ' s Appeal Court had confirmed the judgement . Indictments to KLA leaders . The ICTY also leveled indictments against KLA members Fatmir Limaj , Haradin Bala , Isak Musliu and Agim Murtezi , indicted for crimes against humanity . They were arrested on 17 – 18 February 2003 . Charges were soon dropped against Agim Murtezi as a case of mistaken identity , whereas Fatmir Limaj was acquitted of all charges on 30 November 2005 and released . The charges were in relation to the prison camp run by the defendants at Lapušnik between May and July 1998 . On March 2005 , a UN tribunal indicted Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj for war crimes against the Serbs , on 8 March he tendered his resignation . Haradinaj , an ethnic Albanian , was a former commander who led units of the Kosovo Liberation Army and was appointed Prime Minister after winning an election of 72 votes to three in the Kosovo ' s Parliament in December 2004 . Haradinaj was acquitted on all counts , but was recalled due to witness intimidation and faces a retrial . However on 29 November 2012 , Haradaniaj and all KLA fighters were acquitted from all charges .