JAILED MURDERER FALSELY REPORTED AS KOSOVA VOLUNTEER

Saturday, May 18, 2002

Roland Bartetzko (31) a German national, was sentenced in Kosova to 23 years in prison, convicted of murder, terrorism and four attempted murders. It has been widely reported that he had fought with the UCK in Kosova and with the NLA in Makedonija. However, this is completely untrue and no corroboration was sought by any media reporting the story.

Our own sources confirm that Bartetzko was never a member of the Kosova Liberation Army or the National Liberation Army of Makedonija. He is actually 41 years old, not 31. Rumoured to be an ex-paratrooper, Bartetzko was in fact an UNPROFOR-UNHCR civilian official, based for a considerable time (1992-96) in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo where he was somewhat influential in the formation of the Federation's interim government in 1996.

After NATO's intervention in Kosova, Bartetzko joined a KFOR civilian liaison team that worked with the local community in the province.

The roadside bomb he detonated was an American manufactured Claymore mine fitted with a hand grenade fuse, the explosion killing one Serb and two ethnic Albanians. This act was the result of an ongoing dispute between Bartetzko and the father of a local girl he was dating. The father was one of the two murdered Albanians.

Initially Bartetzko was arrested by UN police officers. Though technically immune from prosecution in Kosova and immediately repatriated (like so many other members of international organisations charged with committing serious crimes in Kosova), the government of Kosova nevertheless requested that he be tried and sentenced in Germany, to which the German authorities in this instance obliged. He is now in prison there where he will serve his entire sentence.

This is just one in a decade long farrago of incorrect information and uncorroborated rumour printed as fact, regarding former International Volunteers in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosova. No media organisations bothered to ask the Kosova authorities for details of this incident or indeed for any comment, even though they are best placed to provide any information relating to events on their own territory.

CFIVA