Hundreds of Serbs gathered on Monday in the village of Pasjan/Pasjane, some 55 kilometres east of Pristina, to protest against the arrest of five people on war crime charges last Saturday.

Holding signs with slogans reading: “They arrest us to expel all Serbs [from Kosovo]”, “We demand [NATO’s Kosovo force] KFOR protection”, and “They are arrested but they are innocent”, they gathered in the centre of the village with family members of the suspects, demanding their release.

“I call on the international community to stop this injustice because Kosovo prisons are full of innocent people,” Jovan Cvetkovic, son of Dragan Cvetkovic one of the five, told the crowd.

Vasilije Sosic, father of Milos Sosic, said that his son, who worked as a Kosovo Police officer for more than two decades, has been twice awarded for his “good and honest work”.

“He worked with the Kosovo Police and 24 years on, the time came for him to be accused of war crimes,” Sosic said.

The Special Prosecution said on Saturday that Dragan Cvetkovic, Dragan Ninic, Milos Sosic, Nenad Stojanovic and Slobodan Jevtic had been arrested for suspected war crimes. On Sunday, Pristina Basic Court ordered 30 days of detention for all five suspects.

According to the Special Prosecution, the five are suspected of participating in an armed group which on April 5, 1999, “undertook an operation in the villages of Inatoc, Llovce, Pogragje and Ulgar, where they intentionally killed, wounded, burned alive Albanian civilian victims, took hostages, raped, beat, ill-treated and physically and mentally tortured them, looted, destroyed Albanian properties and burned them, expelled the Albanian civilian population, and destroyed and abused cultural and religious premises”.

Vasilije Arsic, the lawyer for Dragan Ninic, told Serb-language media that the prosecution had not presented all the evidence to defence teams.

“My client is suspected of having committed war crimes against Albanian civilians. Based on the evidence presented by the prosecution, we believe that there are no elements for such charges. The prosecution has evidence that it did not present to us, they keep it secret,” Arsic was quoted as saying by Radio KIM on Saturday.