Syndicate: AP/BBC/Reuters: U.S. Soldier Charged With Raping and Killing Kosovo Girl (Jan 16, 2000)

[Paola Lucchesi <paola.lucchesi@mail.inet.it>]

>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20000116/aponline142436_000.htm
>
>US Soldier Charged in Kosovo Death
>
>By Melissa Eddy
>Associated Press Writer
>Sunday, Jan. 16, 2000; 2:24 p.m. EST
>
>VITINA, Yugoslavia -- An American soldier serving with the international
>peacekeeping force in Kosovo was charged Sunday with sexually assaulting
>and killing an 11-year-old ethnic Albanian girl, the U.S. military
>announced.
>     Staff Sgt. Frank J. Ronghi is accused of murder and indecent acts
>with a child, Col. Ellis Golson told reporters. It is the first time a
>peacekeeper from any country has been accused of such serious crimes
>since the 50,000-strong NATO-led peacekeeping force entered the province
>on June 12.
>     The incident threatens relations between the Americans and Kosovo
>civilians whom the peacekeepers were sent to protect. The peacekeepers
>were sent in after the 78-day NATO bombing campaign forced Yugoslav
>President Slobodan Milosevic to halt his bloody crackdown against
>Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority.
>     "We don't want them here to give us security if they are going to
>do this," said Muharram Samakova, a neighbor of the girl's family.
>     Ronghi, 35, is a weapons squad leader assigned to A Company, 3rd
>Battalion, 405th Parachute Infantry Regiment from Fort Bragg, N.C.,
>Golson said. His hometown was not immediately available. He was being
>held in detention at nearby Camp Bondsteel pending transfer to the U.S.
>Army's confinement facility in Mannheim, Germany.
>     The girl's body was found late Thursday in the countryside near the
>city of Vitina, 45 miles southeast of the provincial capital, Pristina,
>the army said. A senior U.N. official who asked not to be named said
>Saturday that the girl appeared to have been raped before she was
>killed.
>     In Vitina, the slain girl's father, Hamdi Shabiu, showed reporters
>a photo of his daughter's corpse that he said a U.S. officer brought him
>late Thursday, when he was informed of her death. The girl's face
>appeared battered and bruised, with a small cut on her forehead.
>     Shabiu said he last saw his daughter early Thursday when she left
>to go to the market. She did not return. Neighbors in an apartment
>complex across the street told him she had been killed in the basement
>of the building.
>     "They killed her 20 meters (yards) away from the house," he said.
>"They took her - she was only 11 1-2 years old."
>     Serbian state-run television, which regularly criticizes the NATO
>peacekeeping mission, said Sunday evening that the case "exposed an
>unprecedented disgrace."
>     It was too early to tell how the incident would affect relations
>between the Americans and ethnic Albanians. Other similar cases - like
>the rape of a 12-year-old Japanese girl by three U.S. servicemen in
>1995, for example - have sparked rallies against the U.S. military
>presence.
>     The U.S. peacekeepers are widely seen as heroes by Kosovo Albanians
>because of Washington's role in the NATO bombing campaign. On Sunday,
>groups of ethnic Albanian children could be seen milling around U.S.
>military vehicles, laughing, chatting and playing with the soldiers.
>     However, neighbors of the Shabiu family were outraged.
>     Hxsen Islami said local residents had filed complaints with the
>U.S. command in Vitina about male soldiers searching young girls for
>weapons. He said the complaints had gotten no response.
>     "I'm sorry, but they are touching the girls," Islami said.
>     U.S. military officials at the main headquarters at Camp Bondsteel
>said they knew nothing about such complaints. Brig. Gen. Ricardo
>Sanchez, the head of Kosovo's American forces, met Saturday night with
>community leaders in Vitina and offered his condolences to the family.
>     The army said Sunday it will appoint an officer to conduct a
>pretrial investigation. The investigator eventually will recommend
>whether the charges should be referred to a court martial. Ronghi could
>be tried before a military judge or a panel of officers.
>
>© Copyright 2000 The Associated Press
>_______________________________________________________________________
>http://news2.thls.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_605000/605903.stm
>
>Sunday, 16 January, 2000, 16:41 GMT
>
>US soldier charged with Kosovo killing
>
>A US soldier serving with the international peacekeeping force in Kosovo
>(K-For) has been charged with the sexual assault and murder of an
>11-year old ethnic Albanian girl.
>     Staff Sergeant Frank Ronghi, 35, was arrested last Thursday in the
>south-eastern town of Vitina after the girl's body was discovered by a
>US patrol.
>     She apparently had been killed the same day, said Colonel Ellis
>Golson, in charge of the mainly US-run south-east sector of K-For.
>     Her father, Hamdi Shabiu, said he last saw his daughter early on
>Thursday when she left to go to the market. She did not return.
>     A US officer showed him photos later that day of her corpse, in
>which her face appeared battered and bruised, and with a small cut on
>her forehead.
>     Sergeant Ronghi, of the 504th parachute infantry regiment based in
>Fort Bragg, North Carolina, was charged with "murder and indecent acts
>with a child" according to the chief of staff of US forces in south-east
>Kosovo.
>
>Outrage
>
>The incident has outraged Albanian families in Vitina.
>     "We don't want them here to give us security if they are going to
>do this" a neighbour of the girl's family said.
>     The commander of the regional forces, Brigadier General Ricardo
>Sanchez, met local leaders of the town to express the military's
>"heartfelt and deepest condolences", a US army spokeswoman said.
>     He stressed however that the tragic killing was "an individual
>criminal act that will be dealt with appropriately".
>     K-For's commander German General Klaus Reinhardt said he was
>"deeply shocked" by the murder.
>     "I am also deeply saddened that the reputation of the whole of
>K-For has been affected by the criminal act of one individual," he said.
>     The army has said it will appoint an officer to conduct an
>investigation to determine the exact circumstances of the killing and
>cause of death.
>     Sergeant Ronghi is being held in detention and will soon be
>transferred to the US Army's Mannheim military prison in Germany.
>_______________________________________________________________________
>http://infoseek.go.com/Content?arn=a0602LBY351reulb-20000116&qt=Kosovo&sv=IS&lk
>=noframes&col=NX&kt=A&ak=news1486
>
>U.S. Soldier Charged With Killing Kosovo Girl
>
>01:11 p.m Jan 16, 2000 Eastern
>By Andrew Gray
>
>VITINA, Serbia (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier in Kosovo was charged Sunday
>with murdering a local 12-year-old ethnic Albanian girl, U.S. forces
>said.
>     The soldier, 35-year-old Staff Sergeant Frank Ronghi was also
>charged with committing indecent acts with a child, the chief of staff
>for Kosovo's U.S.-led military sector said.
>     ``I'd like to express our heartfelt and deepest condolences to the
>family of the victim,'' a somber Colonel Ellis Golson told reporters at
>Camp Bondsteel, the main U.S. base in Kosovo.
>     Outside the girl's home in the town of Vitina, about 15 km (nine
>miles) from the giant military camp in eastern Kosovo, neighbors
>gathered to offer sympathy and support to her family.
>     Some complained at the general behavior of U.S. troops. But the
>victim's distraught father, clutching a photograph from military
>authorities of his daughter on a mortuary slab, said he felt no anger
>toward American soldiers in general.
>     ``You can't blame the whole army. You can't blame the commander,''
>said Hamdi Shabiu, sobbing as he talked to reporters outside his home.
>``We want to know who this soldier was... Why did they allow such a
>soldier to come here?''
>     The picture he held showed the head of his daughter Merite, her
>skin pale and apparently bruised, resting on a white pillow with her
>light brown hair swept back.
>     Ronghi, from the Third Battalion of the 504th Parachute Infantry
>Regiment based at Fort Bragg North Carolina but currently stationed in
>Vitina, was detained immediately after the discovery of the girl's body
>Thursday, U.S. forces spokeswoman Major Debbie Allen said.
>     The killing provoked shock across Kosovo, which is home to more
>than 40,000 troops from the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force. They were
>deployed in the region last June after alliance bombing drove Serb
>forces out of the southern Yugoslav province.
>
>FAMILY SURVIVED SERB TERROR
>
>Inside the family's simple house, women gathered to console the girl's
>mother in a bare-walled room with few furnishings. The women wailed as
>Remzie Shabiu recounted how the family had survived Serb terror only to
>face tragedy now.
>     ``She walked barefoot for 30 km (19 miles) when we escaped from the
>Serbs,'' she said. ``But now...'' Her voice trailed off.
>     Although no longer met with the euphoria which marked their
>arrival, KFOR troops are generally given a warm reception by Kosovo's
>majority ethnic Albanians who see them as guarantors against the return
>of repressive Serb forces.
>     KFOR commander General Klaus Reinhardt said he was filled with
>horror and anger.
>     Vitina residents were shocked that someone from a nation they
>idolized had committed such a crime. ``We thought they were the most
>civilized people in the world,'' one man remarked.
>     U.S. troops found the girl's body three km (two miles) outside
>Vitina Thursday evening, Major Allen said.
>     The killer had attacked the girl, she said, adding the exact cause
>of death was being investigated.
>     Allen said the indecency charge specified that ``an act occurred
>with a child under 16 years of age that was for the sexual gratification
>or stimulation of the person who did it.''
>     Brigadier General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of the U.S. forces in
>Kosovo, met Vitina leaders Saturday evening.
>     ``They discussed how important it is to continue relations,'' Allen
>said.
>     ``The unit has a good relationship with this community. They have
>been there a few months, they have established a position there that has
>been welcomed by the people,'' she told reporters at Bondsteel. ``This
>is an isolated situation.''
>     Ronghi was understood to have been in the army for more than 12
>years, U.S. forces said, and was likely to be transferred to a U.S.
>detention center in Mannheim, Germany, later in the week.
>
>Copyright 2000 Reuters Limited.


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