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is present, and persecution does not necessarily require a physical element."

It is submitted that the sequence of attacks against and terrorisation of the Kosovar population by Serbian/FRY police and military forces constitutes precisely this crime of persecution, for the Kosovars were targeted as a group on the basis of their Albanian ethnicity and had been subjected to the most blatant policy of discrimination since 1989. Thus, during the conflict in 1998, the elements of "persecution" took the form of:

(i) attacks on towns and villages inhabited by Kosovar civilians;

(ii) the killing and causing of serious injury or harm to Kosovar civilians, including women, children, the elderly and the infirm, both during and after such attacks;

(iii) the arbitrary selection, detention and imprisonment of male members of the Kosovar population during such attacks;

(iv) the coercion, intimidation and terrorisation the Kosovar population such that they abandoned their property and homes;

(v) wanton and excessive destruction of civilian dwellings and other buildings;

(vi) wilful destruction of private property, including crops and livestock;

(vii) the organised looting and plundering of civilian property.

In addition, murder, torture, rape and other inhumane acts are themselves crimes against humanity, listed in Article 5, paragraphs (a), (f), (g) and (i) respectively. Those responsible for the above-described events in, inter alia, Gornje Obrinje, Golubovac, Vranic and Susica should therefore also be subject to prosecution under these provisions.

Having thus laid out the facts and the legal prohibitions which relate to these facts, the final issue to be addressed is that of responsibility, for only by determining the nature and extent of responsibility can a judicial response to the Kosovo conflict contribute to peace and reconciliation.

V. INDIVIDUAL CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY

Article 7 of the Statute of the International Tribunal concerns the individual criminal responsibility of perpetrators of serious violations of international humanitarian law and reads as follows:

1. A person who planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted in the planning, preparation or execution of a crime referred to in articles 2 to 5 of the present Statute, shall be individually responsible for the crime.

2. The official position of any accused person, whether as Head of State or Government or as a responsible Government official, shall not relieve such person of criminal responsibility nor mitigate punishment.

3. The fact that any of the acts referred to in articles 2 to 5 of the present Statute was committed by a subordinate does not relieve his superior of criminal responsibility if he knew or had reason to know that the subordinate