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| Special Court for War Crimes in Serbia |
Belgrade's Special Court for War Crimes sentenced Rajko Kozlina to 15 years in prison - a former member of the Yugoslav Army - for the killing of 15 and injuring two Albanian civilians in Trnje, near Suhareka, in March 1999.
According to the court's decision, he with a group of soldiers, ordered, orchestrated and participated in the killing and wounding of Albanian civilians. Former Yugoslav Army member Pavle Gavrilovic was released from responsibility. None of the family members of the victims, who participated in the announcement of the verdict at the Belgrade Court, did not wanted to make any statements.According to the prosecution, Gavrilovic and Kozlina, as members of the Yugoslav Army on March 25, 1999, participated in the attack on the village of Trnje in Kosovo, where 31 Albanian civilians were killed, among them 12 women and four children. Gavrilovic, who at that time was commander of the army's 549 battalion, according to the prosecution, ordered the attack after gathering around himself his subordinates, including Kozlina and ordered them to kill civilians by saying "there should not exist any survived." According to the indictment, Kozlin and other commanders started the attack subsequently, writes .
At the start of the trial, Gavrilovic and Kozlina denied the charges. The non-governmental organization "The found for the Humanitarian Law Center", in May 2008, filed the criminal charges against 11 members of the Brigade 549 on suspicion of having committed war crimes in Trnje. The same year, criminal reports were also filed against them by the family members of the victims.