Romanians accused of using outdated rubber bullets on Albanian rioters

[Crvena zvezda]

Romanians accused of using outdated rubber bullets on Albanian rioters
April 20, 2007 10:20 AM
PRISTINA, Serbia-Rubber bullets fired by a Romanian special police unit that killed two protesters in Kosovo exceeded their legal use by over a decade, the province's U.N. police chief said Wednesday.
Richard Monk, the top U.N. police commissioner in Kosovo, said an investigation on the RB1 type of rubber bullets found they were manufactured in 1991 with a shelf life of three years.
"That means the rubber bullets were out of date by at least 12 years," he said. "I have directed that such ammunition currently in the possession of any specialized police unit be either sent home or destroyed."
Monk spoke a day after a U.N. prosecutor concluded that Romanian police officers were responsible for two deaths and two woundings of ethnic Albanian protesters during a protest against a U.N. plan on the future of the disputed province.
The prosecutor, however, found no sufficient evidence to identify those responsible for firing the shots.
Monk, who commands some 1,500 U.N. police officers and the 7,300-strong Kosovo police force, said that prosecutors and technicians investigating the case were concerned that the "rubber would have hardened and therefore the bullet itself would have become more lethal."
"Manufacturers put a time limit on the use of the rubber bullets because probably the rubber hardens over time ... making them even more risky to use at short range," he said.
One of the victims was struck in the head, behind his ear with the rubber bullet that pierced his skull, while the other one was shot in front of his forehead, the U.N. report said.
The prosecutor Robert Dean said Tuesday the shootings appeared to be "unwarranted and unjustified" and that the two deaths "appear to have been unnecessary and avoidable."
Two demonstrators were killed on Feb. 10 when U.N. police fired rubber bullets at 3,000 ethnic Albanian protesters angry with a U.N. plan they said fell short of their demands to grant Kosovo full independence. They broke through a police barricade in an attempt to reach the government building in Kosovo's capital, Pristina.
Two others were seriously wounded and dozens were treated for the effects of tear gas.
Kosovo has been run by a U.N. mission since mid-1999, when NATO airstrikes halted Serb forces' crackdown on independence-seeking ethnic Albanians. Some 1,500 U.N. police officers and a 7,300-strong Kosovo police force are in charge of security.
Monk said the issue of the expired rubber bullets was being looked into at the U.N. headquarters in New York, but said that it did not rest within body's capacity to issue regulations on the expire date of the ammunition. "We would expect that specialized police units coming here would adhere to the manufacture's rules," he said.