Yugoslav chiefs investigated

Milosevic: Pre-trial brief names the Yugoslav army and Serbian police chiefs

THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- U.N. prosecutors preparing for the war crimes trial of Slobodan Milosevic say they are investigating the chief of staff of the Yugoslav army and Serbia's police chief over alleged atrocities in Kosovo in 1999.

Army chief Nebojsa Pavkovic and head of police Sreten Lukic, promoted to their current posts only after the Kosovo conflict, played a key role in Milosevic's campaign of "ethnic cleansing," U.N. prosecutors told Reuters.

Pavkovic was then head of the Yugoslav Third Army, which covered Kosovo, while Lukic was head of uniformed police in the province during a Serb terror campaign in which up to 800,000 ethnic Albanians were driven from their homes, prosecutors said.

Belgrade's crackdown in Kosovo was ended by an 11-week NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.

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"We have one investigation into the activities of the Serb forces in Kosovo. The roles individuals played in that is part of the investigation," deputy prosecutor Graham Blewitt told Reuters.

Pavkovic and Lukic, named by the prosecution as part of the Serb chain of command headed by Milosevic during the conflict, were being investigated along with other subordinates.

"It doesn't necessarily mean they are being pursued with the aim of indicting them," Blewitt said.

Serbia's leaders, who appointed Lukic to his new job last January, have said his record is clean. Lukic told Reuters in May he did not believe war crimes were committed in Kosovo.

Pavkovic and Lukic were named in a so-called pre-trial brief submitted by prosecutors to the Hague war crimes tribunal as part of preparations for Milosevic's trial on charges of crimes against humanity in Kosovo. The brief provides details of the prosecution's case.

A global human rights group said it had also had evidence implicating Milosevic and his associates, including Pavkovic and Lukic, in systematic atrocities in Kosovo.

"We think there is a certainly a credible basis for this investigation by the tribunal given the facts that we have gathered," said Human Rights Watch spokesman Richard Dicker.

"But investigation does not mean indictment unless the evidence sustains one," Dicker told Reuters. It was announced last week that Milosevic, 60, is to be indicted at the U.N. court for genocide during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

He and his associates had the goal of "the forcible and permanent removal of non-Serbs from the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina" prosecutors said.

Milosevic has been in a Hague cell since he was whisked out of Belgrade in June after being detained by Yugoslavia's new authorities. He is also charged with genocide during the 1992-95 Bosnian war and crimes against humanity in Croatia in 1991-92.