UN fires its Kosovo police chief after deaths

PRISTINA, Serbia, Feb 14 (Reuters) The United Nations administrator of Serbia's breakaway Kosovo province fired the UN police chief today following the deaths of two Albanian demonstrators in a weekend protest rally.

''I have asked the police commissioner, Stephen Curtis, to resign from his post with immediate effect,'' UN overseer Joachim Ruecker told reporters.

Curtis, a Briton, heads the 1,800-strong international police force in Kosovo. Ruecker said he called for the resignation ''on the principle of political accountability''.

He appointed a special prosecutor to investigate the deaths which resulted from head wounds caused by police rubber bullets.

At the time Curtis said UN and Kosovo police had been compelled to take ''defensive measures'' when protesters tried to force their way through barricades around parliament in the capital Pristina.

Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku said police had used ''excessive force'' and Kosovo Interior Minister Fatmir Rexhepi resigned on Monday, accepting ''moral responsibility'' for the deaths of the two men, aged 30 and 34.

They were among 3,000 people protesting against a UN plan for the province which many Albanians said falls short of full independence.

A third man, aged 26, is in a coma at the US Army's Camp Bondsteel base in Kosovo.

Deputy UN police chief Trygve Kalleberg, who took up his post on the day of the demonstration, said a police investigation would focus on the decision to use rubber bullets.

''EXCESSIVE FORCE'' The violence was the worst since March 2004 when 19 people died in Albanian mob riots against Serbs. It underscored Western fears of widespread civil unrest if a decision on the Albanian majority's demand for independence does not come soon.

Before his arrival in Kosovo last July, Curtis held a variety of senior police positions in Britain and also served as a lecturer at the UK National Police Staff College on the management of disaster and civil emergency.

About 90 per cent of Kosovo's 2 million people are ethnic Albanians. The province has been run by the United Nations since 1999 when NATO bombs drove out Serb forces accused of atrocities in a two-year war with guerrillas.

A UN plan unveiled this month, if adopted by the UN Security Council, would set the province on the path to independence supervised by the European Union.

Kosovo Albanian leaders have accepted the blueprint, drafted by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari after months of fruitless Serb-Albanian talks in Vienna.

Some Albanians say its provisions for further international supervision and self-government for Serbs will only prolong Kosovo's limbo status. A final round of Serb-Albanian talks is due to begin on February 21.

Reuters KD DB1759