Kosovo war crimes suspect arrested in Sweden News
Kosovo war crimes suspect arrested in Sweden

[JURIST] Swedish Police [official website] on Wednesday arrested [press release, in Swedish] a Kosovo war crimes suspect. The suspect is accused of committing war crimes during the 1998-1999 Kosovo war [BBC backgrounder; JURIST news archive] in the small village of Cuska in May 1999. A Swedish police spokesperson did not release the man's full name because of Swedish privacy laws but did state that the suspect is a Serbian man in his 30s [AFP/SW report]. The Swedish Prosecution Authority [official website, in Swedish] will request on Friday that the suspect remain in custody until trial. It is not clear where the suspect will face charges [AP report].

In March, a spokesperson for Serbia's Office of the War Crimes Prosecutor [official website] announced the arrest of nine individuals [JURIST report] suspected of committing war crimes during the Kosovo war. In June, Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] marked the 10-year anniversary of the conflict's end by reporting that many human rights abuses that occurred during the war in Kosovo have gone uninvestigated and unpunished [JURIST report]. Prosecutors have nonetheless secured several convictions. A week after AI's report, a Serbian court convicted [JURIST report] four former paramilitary officers of killing 14 Albanians in northern Kosovo. In April 2009, four Serbian ex-policemen were convicted [JURIST report] of killing of 48 Albanian civilians in Suva Reka.