Judge says attackers "intended to kill policemen"

BUJANOVAC -- The attack on a police checkpoint in the southern village of Dobrosin took place at 01:45 CET on Thursday and was "probably carried out by three attackers".

They fired from three different types of weapons and meant to kill, rather than "intimidate" police officers, a judge has said.

“Based on the ammunition leftovers it can be concluded that they fired automatic rifles, machine guns and snipers of great destructive power,” Nada Čolić, the investigating judge of the High Court of the southern town of Vranje, told reporters at the scene.

She said that the attackers came to about 30 to 50 meters distance from the police checkpoint and fired from the administrative line between central Serbia and Kosovo-Metohija, using armor-piercing ammunition.

"We can conclude that the intention of the attackers was not to intimidate but to liquidate the four-member police patrol at the checkpoint,” said the investigating judge.

The four policemen, two Serbs and two ethnic Albanians, managed to save their lives by throwing their bodies on the ground, helped by a pile of wood in front of the police checkpoint complex.

About 30 missiles were fired at the checkpoint, Čolić said.

The Dobrosin village, with the checkpoint between central Serbia and Kosovo, is located at about 16 kilometers southwest of theh town of Bujanovac.

The village is known for being the place where an ethnic Albanian terrorist group, calling itsself "the Liberation Army of Preševo, Bujanovac and Medveđa (UCPMB)" was formed in early January 2000.

The group was an offshoot of the "Kosovo Liberation Army", KLA.