Former Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski, a hard-liner in the 2001 Albanian insurgency crisis, has been indicted by the Hague tribunal for war crimes, the Justice Ministry said on Monday. It is the first indictment by the UN tribunal for war crimes in the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, which broke away peacefully from the collapsing federation in 1990 but encountered ethnic conflict 11 years later. "We have received an indictment for Ljube Boskovski and one other person charging them with crimes against the laws or customs of war," spokeswoman Mira Ilievska told reporters in the capital, Skopje.
Macedonian official sources said the indictment is over Boskovski's role in a clash between Macedonian security forces and Albanian rebels in the village of Ljubotno, near Skopje, in 2001, in which 10 Albanians were killed.
Police sources said he was indicted with Johan Tarculovski, a former senior policeman already in custody in Macedonia.
The UN court has now levelled charges in all of the 1990s Yugoslav conflicts except that in Slovenia, indicting individuals from Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia and Kosovo - including the Kosovo Albanian prime minister last week.
Boskovski, 44, is already in custody in Croatia, charged by Macedonia with the murder of seven Asian migrants in 2002 whose killings he said were a blow against Islamic terrorists infiltrating the West.
The Macedonian public prosecutor says he arranged for the seven to be smuggled into Macedonia from Bulgaria and murdered. The scene of the crime was altered to make it appear as if they were armed Islamic militants heading for western Europe.
Boskovski was among the toughest members of the nationalist government of Orthodox Christian Macedonia during the 6-month insurgency by guerrillas of its Muslim Albanian minority.
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