MILOSEVIC SAYS AL QAIDA HAD COMMITTED CRIMES IN KOSOVO

THE HAGUE, March 8 (Hina) - Ex-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on Friday insisted that Al Qaida supported Moslem fighters in Kosovo, thus denying that Serb forces had been implicated in brutal mass crimes in the southern Yugoslav war-torn province.#L# Mislosevic's trial continued before the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY). During his cross-examination of Kosovo human rights activist Sabit Kadriu, who accused Serbs of killing and mutilating ethnic Albanians, the former Yugoslav leader presented alleged FBI documents which show Al Qaida backed the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). According to him, KLA members had executed their fellow- countrymen. He backed his statement by describing the violent behaviour of KLA members. The 41-year-old ethnic Albanian human rights activist denied that Osama bin Laden and Mujahedeen acted in Kosovo. "It's not true there were Mujahedeen in Kosovo. This is a fiction of your mind," the witness told Milosevic. "The KLA was a liberation army and you were mutilating and killing civilians," said the witness. "We know whose speciality this is," Milosevic said, referring to the Al Qaida. Over the past two days, Kadriu testified about crimes the Serb forces committed Kosovo in 1998 and 1999. Kadriu said Milosevic's attempt to attribute war crimes to the KLA, is cynical. "This is a mockery of the victims and he should be ashamed of himself," Kadriu told the tribunal. Milosevic faces 66 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia. (hina) it