Police in Kosovo , backed by British and Norwegian peacekeeping troops, say they have broken an international trafficking and prostitution ring by raiding bars, hotels and homes in the town of Kosovo Polje, near the provincial capital Pristina.
Officials of the Nato-led peacekeeping force K-For said the operation had revealed the involvement of both Serbs and Albanians in the province's sex slave trade. Twelve women, all from the republic of Moldova, were found as the police and troops searched the area.
Serbs had been identified as controlling prostitutes in private houses and flats. Teams of royal marine commandos used sledgehammers to smash down the doors of a house and several flats. Sniffer dogs were sent in to search for explosives. Most of the women were found in the Black Lady bar, on the ground floor of a block of flats. Red velvet curtains covered what used to be a shop window, and a disco ball lit up the centre of the room.
Six women were led away by police officers to a waiting van while three men, the bar's owners, were handcuffed and photographed. Nobody tried to resist arrest. One of the men held the womens' passports. A Royal Ulster Constabulary officer seconded to the UN said the women were nearly all there against their will. They don't have freedom of movement and they are not being paid," he said. He said the raids had been made with the support of residents. Elsewhere, police officers said they found drugs and syringes.
Seven people were arrested and four pistols were seized. A police spokesman said several of the suspects were believed to be former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army. A senior former KLA commander, Sabit Geci, was detained in Pristina last month, accused of threatening to kill the owner of strip bar.
