TIRANA (AP) - An Albanian policeman and another person were arrested in central Albania while allegedly transporting drugs in a car, likely destined for the neighboring Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia or Greece, the police said yesterday. Policeman Naim Alikaj and his friend Pajtim Hyseni were arrested on Wednesday in Elbasan, 55 kilometers (34 miles) south of the capital Tirana, with 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of hashish and 2.5 liters (0.66 gallons) of hashish oil, a statement said.

ISTANBUL (AP) - A Turkish court sentenced two men to life in prison for the 2003 robberies and murder of two German tourists and their Turkish tour guide, the Anatolia news agency reported yesterday. The court sentenced Kudret Kaptan and Gundogan Tansel to three life sentences each for “planned and premeditated murder,” and an additional 15 years each for robbery, Anatolia said. The bodies of the two German women, Sabine Bader and Anja Hofken, were found buried in a forest, their throats cut, near the popular Mediterranean resort town of Antalya, along with the body of Turkish tour guide Erdogan Ozdemir.

A 27-year-old Dutch tourist was seriously injured and had to have part of his leg amputated after he stepped on a land mine on a southern Croatian island, officials said yesterday. The tourist, identified as Stek Tesse Dieder, ventured into a field on the island of Vis — which was not marked as having land mines — to watch a nearby forest fire on Wednesday afternoon. He stepped on the mine when he stepped off the path. (AP)

Police in Serbia’s capital said yesterday that they had arrested a man suspected of sexually molesting his girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter. The child was reported to have died in the hospital from injuries sustained during repeated molestation and violent beatings by the man, identified as Malisa Jevtovic, 31, police said. The girl’s mother, Ana Filipovic, 26, is suspected of “dereliction of parental duties” and “consciously placing the child in harm’s way” by allegedly allowing her boyfriend to repeatedly abuse the child. The police did not say when the abuse and death occurred. (AP)

The wife of top Bosnian Serb war crimes fugitive Radovan Karadzic said in an interview published yesterday that she has not seen him since 2001 and doesn’t know where he is hiding. Ljiljana Karadzic-Zelen told the independent Evropa weekly that their son, Sasa, and daughter, Sonja, have not seen the wartime Bosnian-Serb leader since 1998 when he went into hiding. Karadzic-Zelen said she met him once briefly in 2001. “I received a message, I saw him for an hour and left,” Mrs Karadzic said, without elaborating. She claimed she doesn’t know the secret location where they met. (AP)

While Western Europe is struggling with drought, wheat harvests and vegetable crops in Bosnia have been ravaged by an extremely rainy summer, an official said yesterday. “Due to rainy weather, the yields of wheat and vegetable crops are 30 percent lower this year, while barley suffered losses of some 10 percent,” Agriculture Ministry official Savo Rankic told AFP. “This is the worst harvest in the past 15 years,” he said. “The average wheat production in Bosnia is some 150,000 tons a year, while this year we expect only around 100,000 tons, which means that wheat imports will go up by at least 10.2 million euros ($12.3 million),” Rankic said. (AFP)