According to a statement issued on the ICTY web site "the indictment against Ljube Boskoski and Johan Tarculovski charges them with murder, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages and cruel treatment carried out in the village of Ljuboten, located to the north of Skopje, on 12 August 2001."
In his opening statement, Prosecutor Dan Saxon gave a description of a seven-month-long conflict in Macedonia in 2001 between local ethnic Albanians and the Macedonian forces, according to the AFP.
The trial against the 46-year-old Boskovski and the 32-year-old Tarculovski is the first case against Macedonians before the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
Both indictees entered a not-guilty plea.