Kosovo police arrested five ethnic Serbs Sunday, including four former policemen, suspected of involvement in one of the worst crimes against ethnic Albanian civilians during the 1990s war, prosecutors said.
The arrests were the first linked to the massacre of more than 40 ethnic Albanian civilians by Serb forces in the Kosovo village of Recak (Racak in Serbian) in January 1999, a prosecutor told reporters.
"These persons have been identified as being part of the special units of the Serbian police at the time they participated in the operation (that started) on January 5, 1999 in Recak", said prosecutor Ilir Morina.
This is the second case initiated by the Kosovo judiciary over the massacre.
A preliminary hearing in the trial of 21 Serbs over their alleged role in the killings, including former top Serbian police officials, is scheduled for July 20.
The case against the five arrested on Sunday has been dubbed "Recak 2".
The indictment for the July 20 proceedings, seen by AFP, charges 21 former members of the Serbian military and police with murder, torture, inhumane treatment, destruction of property, and the deportation of Kosovo Albanian civilians.
Those charged include former Serbian police chief Obrad Stevanovic and intelligence chief Rade Markovic as well as two generals and two colonels.
As they remain at large and outside the reach of Kosovo's judiciary, prosecutors requested that they be tried in absentia.
- 'Brutally killed' -
During the Recak massacre, 42 Albanian civilians of various ages and genders were killed, the indictment said.
The operation culminated early on January 15, 1999, when the Serb forces "surrounded and shelled the village from a distance, then carried out ground operations, entering with armoured vehicles and searching house after house", it said.
The massacre was one of the most serious crimes committed against civilians during the 1998-1999 Kosovo war.
It became a turning point in the conflict, outraging the West and triggering a NATO bombing campaign against the forces of the then Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic.
The campaign ended by ousting Serbian troops from Kosovo, the establishment of a UN mission in the territory and eventually its declaration of independence in 2008.
But Belgrade still does not recognise the move.
Serbia's office for Kosovo condemned the arrests as part of a "systematic political and institutional violence by Pristina ... using allegations of alleged war crimes as a cover for its chauvinistic and anti-Serb policy".
Although the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) observer mission in Kosovo reported at the time that the massacre victims were civilians, Serbia insists they were members of guerrilla forces killed in clashes with Serbian forces.
More than 13,000 people died during the Kosovo conflict, most of them ethnic Albanians.
