ANOTHER MASS TRIAL TO FORMER POLICE OFFICERS IN KOSOVO

PRISTINA, April 7 (Hina) - Pristina deputy district attorney, Jovica Jovanovic, today pressed charges against 71 ethnic Albanians. The defendants, who are all former police officers, are facing charges of "jeopardizing the territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia". The defendants allegedly engaged in a conspiracy to establish a "parallel ministry of interior for Kosovo", including seven regional police headquarters in major cities. Jovanovic said at a press-conference that "their basic aim was to force the secession of Kosovo from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia". Witnesses were to be banned from proceedings. Asked to explain this move unknown to jurisprudence, Jovanovic curtly replied that the defendants would be tried "under current regulations". Similar charges have already been brought against 44 former policemen from Prizren, 28 from Gnjilane. Another group of policemen is actually being tried at the Pec district court. This string of obviously trumped-up charges against Albanian policemen was aimed at striking terror into the Albanian population, the deputy president of the Democratic League of Kosovo, Fehmi Agani, today told a press-conference. Kosovo is a province on the south of Serbia whose 90-percent Albanian population was stripped of both human and autonomy rights by the Milosevic regime. (hina) mm as 072027 MET apr 95