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Podujevo 1999 – Beyond Reasonable DoubtI passed through Podujevo some time later, on 19 April, hoping to meetsomeone who could direct me to Lirrie’s father. But the streets were teemingwith uniformed men who looked like bandits and robbers, and I wasafraid to stop any of them to ask questions. Two days later, I saw a columnof several thousand Albanians on the road from Priština to Podujevo. Anelderly man told me the police had given them permission to return toPodujevo. I saw, however, that the column did not go into Podujevo. Onlypeople registered as residents of the town were allowed to return; the resthad to find shelter in the woods where they remained until the deploymentof the international forces in Kosovo.I found Selatin Bogujevci, Lirrie’s father, two years later. He told me his childrenand his brothers, all five of them, had survived. We spoke many timesand after each conversation he talked with his children about 28 March.He would call me on the phone or write, saying the children were still takingit very hard, that his youngest, Genc, always fell silent when they talkedabout what had happened or when his mother’s name was mentioned.The last time we spoke, on 10 November this year, he told me that Genc,now nine, had talked about the shooting for the first time and said he rememberedthe man who had fired his gun at them.In Podujevo, I spoke with people in Ivana Kosančića and Rahmana MorineStreets. On 30 and 31 October 2002, I went through all the houses andyards from which people had been thrown out on 28 March. In HalimGashi’s yard I saw the small old house against whose walls women andchildren from Bogujevci and Duriqi families had been shot. Although thewalls had been whitewashed, bullet holes were still discernible on themand on the concrete path.Rexhep KastratiRexhep Kastrati told me how the police entered Albanian homes in Podujevo.The house he shares with the Gjata family is situated about 100 metresfrom the town hall and the police station, and was the first the police cameto. It has three entrances. Kastrati was on the second floor with his wife,daughters, older sisters and their children. Besides them, there were alsorefugees they had taken in. His sons had left for Priština the day before.This is how Kastrati described what happened when the police came:89