Thousands of demonstrators gathered in the north-west of Kosovo for the second day running to protest against the arrest of a former ethnic Albanian guerrilla commander for war crimes.
Rustrem Mustafa was arrested by the United Nations police on Sunday and charged with abducting and imprisoning at least five people during the 1997-1999 conflict in the province. Yesterday an international judge ordered that he remain in prison for 30 days pending further investigations.
Mr Mustafa, known by his nom de guerre Remi, is the highest profile former Kosovo Liberation Army commander to be arrested since the end of the war. His arrest is the latest of former KLA members that began earlier this summer and appears to mark the former rebel group's fall from favour.
The focus on the guerrilla army's wartime activities is expected to be intensified as the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague will issue its indictments "by the end of the summer or early autumn", UN officials say.
The protesters gathered in Mr Mustafa's hometown of Podujevo, waving banners declaring "Long live the KLA" and chanting "We are not criminals, we are not terrorists".
One former KLA soldier compared the administration in the province to that of the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. "The slavery which the international community, UN and K-For [the Nato-led peacekeeping force] has imposed upon us is no easier than the Serbian slavery," he told the crowd.
For a long time the UN has been accused of failing to tackle the crimes committed by former KLA members - some of whom are now prominent politicians - during and after the war. Bernard Kouchner, the former head of the UN in Kosovo, blocked several police investigations and ordered the release of arrested prisoners.
But the recent wave of arrests has prompted accusations among the Albanian population that the UN has orchestrated the charges.
Kosovo's prime minister, Bajram Rexhepi, has called the police operations "politically motivated" and designed to undermine the prospects of parties with close links to the KLA, ahead of local elections due in October.
The UN denies such accusations. A spokeswoman said the mission had no influence over the prosecutors nor police gathering the evidence. But many local politicians and the ethnic Albanian press appear unconvinced.
On Monday another leading politician and former KLA commander, Ramush Haradinaj, was charged with a breach of the peace over a shooting incident dating back two years.
Mr Haradinaj, the leader of Kosovo's third largest Albanian party, had warned before he was charged that the arrests could provoke unrest. - (Guardian Service)