MILOSEVIC ACCUSES WITNESS OF INSTIGATING LYNCH OF KOSOVO SERBS

THE HAGUE/ZAGREB, Feb 28 (Hina) - Countering accusations that Kosovo Serbs compiled lists of Albanians to be executed, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on Thursday accused an Albanian human rights activist from Kosovska Mitrovica of instigating the lynch of Kosovo Serbs. Halit Barani, chairman of the Kosovska Mitrovica Committee for Human Rights, yesterday described how in February 1999 he had discovered a list compiled by the Serbs with the names of prominent Albanians in Kosovska Mitrovica, who were to be executed. His name too was on the list of around 60 names, he said, adding the document was discovered after the withdrawal of Serbian forces and the arrival of international peace forces. Milosevic accused Barani, who during his testimony gave a detailed account of Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) activities during 1998 and 1999, as well as of his contacts with it, of having founded and joined what he described as an Albanian terrorist organisation. Witnesses who testified today in the trial of the former Yugoslav president at the Hague war crimes tribunal mostly claimed they had never seen KLA members in their towns and knew nothing of their activities. Milosevic accused Barani that his cousins were smuggling drugs in Kosovo and Germany, which the witness denied, as well as that one of his cousins raped a high-school girl, which Barani confirmed. The barrage of accusations Milosevic levelled at Barani included the one saying he committed a murder and directed a theatre play in Mitrovica in 1996 which glorified the murder of a Serb policeman. Responding to cases of murder of Albanians, which Barani presented during his testimony on the basis of the Committee data, Milosevic enumerated a series of crimes committed against Serbs, of which he accused the Albanian side. (hina) rml