Although “beyond any doubt” was determined that the war crime in village Opteruša was committed by a group, the Supreme Court presided by EULEX Judge recently convicted two persons – Ejup Kabashi (designated as the leader of the attack) and Sokol Bitici on two years in prison.
Despite the established guilt, the verdict in a strange way explains how it is imposed a symbolic sentence of two years in prison, although according to the Kosovo criminal law for war crimes is prescribed minimum five years in prison. It is strange that the indictment charged accused persons only for unlawful attacks on civilian population.
The Court did not deal at all with the disappearance of the men, including the youngest Nemanja, who was only 14 years old. During the trial – neither the prosecutor nor the judge asked accused persons what was the fate of their Serb neighbours, whom they imprisoned in Opteruša, and how their bodies ended in a mass grave 15 kilometres away, in Volujak village, where they were found in 2005.
In July 1998, in Orahovac/ Rahovec and the surrounding villages, were kidnapped 110 and then killed 43 civilians. In Opteruša was attacked 15 civilians, who hid in the house of Božanić family. They all survived attack, but when the Serbs surrendered in the morning, kidnappers separated the women from the men. They took all the men, eight of them, including small Nemanja. The women were taken to a nearby place, and then through the mediation of the International Red Cross released.
At that time OSCE observation mission headed by William Walker was employed in Kosovo. Fatmir Limaj led the negotiating team of the KLA at a meeting with Walker, which was supposed to negotiate the exchange of the arrested workers from Orahovac Health Centre and 14 kidnapped Serbs from Opteruša and Retimlje villages. At the meeting Limaj informed Walker that all “captured” Serbs were taken outside of his zone of responsibility, outside Malisevo/Malisheve area, in the region Volujak, which was under the control of Ramush Haradinaj and his brothers. Last summer media have announced that all the evidence regarding the case were handed over to former UNMIK investigators, but then “disappeared” because there was a mole in UNMIK which revealed all the details of the investigation.
