NATO Arrests 3 War Criminals

NATO peacekeepers are interrogating three Serbs for allegedly committing atrocities against ethnic Albanians some time before the NATO bombing campaign ended in June.

The three were arrested Friday by Dutch and German troops in the southern town of Orahovac for possible involvement in "serious crimes," NATO said without elaborating.

German authorities in Bonn said the men are suspected of committing atrocities during President Slobodan Milosevic's 18-month crackdown on the province of Kosovo. That period ended with Milosevic bowing to Western demands and accepting a peace agreement.

Yugoslavia's state-run Tanjug news agency reported four people were detained, including the Serb head of the Orahovac municipal government. Tanjug described all four as respected figures in the community and accused German troops of "insolence and arrogance" toward local Serbs.

The wife of one of the suspects said Dutch soldiers had been passing back and forth in front of their house in recent days and that they had even exchanged greetings with them.

"We offered him a brandy and asked, 'How are you?'" Zlata Levic said of an exchange Friday morning. "He said, 'Good, good.' In that second, a van arrived with four men in camouflage uniforms with masks. They jumped out and took him away."

Dutch troops have been patrolling Orahovac, which is located in the German sector, for weeks. However, they are scheduled to withdraw and hand the town over to Russian peacekeepers this weekend.

Ethnic Albanians resent the presence of the Russians, claiming they support their fellow Slavic Serbs. NATO officials declined to link the timing of the arrests with the turnover to the Russians.

On Friday, the Russian government warned it may withdraw its troops from Kosovo or change their role there if conditions become "unacceptable." They did not elaborate, but have complained in the past that the mission has been unable to curb revenge attacks by ethnic Albanians against Serbs.

Afraid of increasing revenge attacks by ethnic Albanians, most of Kosovo's 200,000 Serbs have left the province.

NATO hopes that attacks will ease as the Kosovo Liberation Army gradually disarms. The group is required to do so under an agreement signed in June. The deal calls for a phased handover of weapons to NATO, with final disarmament by Sept. 19.

The latest deadline was midnight Friday, when the KLA was to have surrendered 60 percent of its weapons.

KLA military commander Gen. Agim Ceku claims the group met the deadline a day in advance. NATO officials said they want to inventory the weapons before confirming the claim.

At a regional collection point in the northern Kosovo town of Podujevo, nearly two dozen British and KLA soldiers spent Friday working shoulder to shoulder, tagging and logging in weapons belonging to four rebel brigades.

Also Friday, hundreds of ethnic Albanians athered at one of central Kosovo's most notorious massacre sites to pay homage to 54 people mostly women and children who were slain by Serb police four months ago.

Mourners toured the charred house in the village of Poklek in the central Drenica region where the coffins of two victims slain by Serb security forces were laid out in a front room.

The remains of the other victims, executed and burned in an adjoining room, were compiled in an oversized wooden coffin which was draped with several red and black Albanian flags.

Of the victims, 42 were from the Mucolli family, including the 6-month-old Lirie Mucolli.