UN Police Officer Dies After Kosovo Clashes

A UN police officer has died from injuries sustained in the worst violence in Kosovo since it declared independence last month.

The Ukrainian officer was one of hundreds of riot police, backed by Nato helicopters and armored vehicles, deployed in the Serb-dominated north of the Albanian-majority province.

Police used grenades and teargas to restore control of a court building occupied by Serb activists last week in the town of Mitrovica. Rioters threw rocks, grenades and Molotov cocktails and used automatic weapons against Nato troops.

More than 60 UN and Nato forces and 70 protesters were wounded, and a police spokesman said an officer died in a military hospital after suffering unspecified injuries yesterday.

The court at the center of the violence has been run by the UN since Kosovo became an international protectorate at the end of the Nato-Serbia war over Kosovo in 1999.

Some 40,000 Serbs of Mitrovica are militantly opposed to Kosovo's independence and, backed by Belgrade, are bent on partitioning Kosovo and taking over the police and justice institutions in the north.

Vojislav Koštunica, Serbia's nationalist prime minister, accused Nato of operating a "policy of force" against Kosovo's Serbs and said he was talking to Russia about how to react. That suggested there could be demands to deploy Russian troops in the Serbian-dominated parts of Kosovo, increasing the likelihood of partition.

About 300 Serbs occupied the court last Friday, evicting the UN employees and hoisting two Serbian flags over the building. Talks over the weekend failed to defuse the crisis and the UN sent in hundreds of Ukrainian and Polish riot police.

More than 50 Serb occupiers in the courthouse were arrested and driven away in UN lorries. Serbian protesters blocked at least three of the lorries and the detainees were freed.

Serbs surrounded the court, hurling stones and petrol bombs, and torching UN or Nato vehicles. The riot police were later ordered to withdraw to the Albanian-controlled south side of the river Ibar, which dissects Mitrovica and forms an ethnic border.

Yesterday's trouble was the most serious since Kosovo's Albanian leadership, backed by the US and most of the EU, declared independence a month ago. It was the worst violence since Albanian mobs staged an anti-Serbian pogrom four years ago, killing 19 people.

Milan Ivanovic, the hard line Serbian nationalist leader in Mitrovica, said the UN assault had been ordered by the Kosovo prime minister, Hashim Thaçi.

"It really is curious that the head of the UN gets orders from temporary illegal Kosovo institutions, from an illegal, self-proclaimed, mafia quasi-state," he said.

The riots come as the EU prepares to steer Kosovo to statehood while Serbia gears up for elections after the crisis brought down the government in Belgrade.

Serbia plans to extend its national and municipal elections in May to the Serb areas of Kosovo, a move the Albanians and international diplomats see as an attempt to partition Kosovo.

Serbia has not staged municipal elections in Kosovo since the UN takeover and to do so would breach the security council resolution mandating the international mission.

"The concern is that the aim is to further Serbia's links with the Serb-majority areas of Kosovo and set up parallel institutions," said a European diplomat. "That would seriously undermine Kosovo statehood."

The EU mission consists of 2,000 people. EU representatives have been unable to go to Mitrovica because of Serbian hostility.