KLA’s Serbian and Albanian victims

KLA’s Serbian and Albanian victims

Miomir Stošić described the circumstances of his father’s disappearance. Velizar Stošić, 63, went missing near Peć on July 19, 1998. The witness was living with his father, mother, brother and brother’s wife in Bijelo Polje, part of Peć.

Their family farm was between the nearby villages of Lođa and Brezanik.

Although there were minor skirmishes between the police and the KLA in the summer of 1998 around Peć, Velizar Stošić went by bicycle to work his field near Lođa as usual in the morning of 19 July.

When he did not return by nightfall, the witness and his family reported him missing.

A month later, the police called the witness to accompany them to Lođa. They explained that they could not go there before because that part of Kosovo had been controlled by the KLA.

Miomir Stošić recognized his father’s bicycle in the field. In September 1998, the witness was told that bodies of Serbs and Albanians had been found in the Radonjić lake canal.

The prosecution alleges that the KLA was responsible for their deaths. The bodies were transferred to the Paštrik hotel in Đakovica, where the witness identified his father’s body and his personal effects, found next to the body.

The indictment against Haradinaj, Balaj and Brahimaj alleges that gunshot wounds were found in Velizar Stošić’s head and leg.

He had a piece of rope tied around his neck. The witness said that he had heard only rumors about who might be responsible for his father’s abduction and disappearance.

Since the prosecution failed to disclose some of the documents admitted into evidence by witness Stošić on time, the Chamber ordered the prosecution to call a new witness.

He was a Kosovo Albanian testifying under the pseudonym 62 and with image and voice distortion.

Witness 62 gave his testimony mostly in closed session, but it did transpire that he was testifying about an incident on July 12, 1998, when four KLA members arrested his father and mother and took them to their headquarters in Glođane.

According to the indictment, the first accused Ramush Haradinaj was the commander there. When the soldiers told the witness they had arrested his parents on the orders of Rustem Tetaj, who testified in this trial as a prosecution witness, two days later the witness went to the village of Luka where Tetaj’s headquarters was.

Tetaj told the witness he knew nothing about the event. The witness never saw his parents alive again.