[ALBSA-Info] U.N. interpreter abducted in Kosovo

[Iris Pilika]

U.N. interpreter abducted in Kosovo


December 7, 2000
Web posted at: 1434 GMT


PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (Reuters) -- United Nations police in Kosovo are 
negotiating with Serbs after an interpreter working with the U.N. was beaten 
and abducted in the northern city of Mitrovica, officials said.

The U.N. said the woman has not been seen since a group of Serbs attacked 
the vehicle which she and a U.N. police officer had been travelling in on 
Thursday. The officer was also beaten.

U.N. spokeswoman Claire Trevena said the Serbs had been angered by the 
arrest of two men and one woman during a weapons raid conducted in 
connection with a murder investigation.

A large number of weapons had been found in the Serb-dominated northern part 
of Mitrovica.

A U.N. police force spokesman in Kosovo said that as word spread about the 
weapons raid by special police teams and NATO-led KFOR peackeepers, people 
gathered in the streets.

They stopped a U.N. police car and beat the police officer and his female 
Serb interpreter, the spokesman, Dmitry Kaportsev, said.

A spokesman for the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping forces said there had been a 
major weapons find.

"There were 11 AK-47 assault rifles, seven hand grenades, nine anti-tank 
rockets, two packages of plastic explosives, a rifle and a pistol and 1,500 
rounds of ammunition," said KFOR spokesman Steven Shappell.

"This is one of the largest weapons finds in Mitrovica."

The town, divided into Serb and Albanian-dominated parts by a river guarded 
by KFOR troops, is a regular flashpoint in Kosovo, where violence still 
flares regularly a year-and-a-half after KFOR took over the province from 
Serb forces.

The troubles in northern Kosovo follow a period of violence on the southern 
border with Serbia where Yugoslav police have reported renewed action by 
ethnic-Albanian militia despite an agreed ceasefire.

Last month, the insurgents allegedly killed four Serb policemen when they 
seized several strategic positions on the Yugoslav side of the Kosovo 
boundary.

Yugoslavia's leaders and NATO officials have been trying to resolve 
increasing tension across Kosovo -- a republic within the Yugoslav 
federation which has been run by the western military alliance since the 
1999 conflict.

Reuters contributed to this report.



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