A Kosovo court has ordered a Serb man to be detained while he awaits trial on charges of genocide and war and humanitarian crimes during Kosovo's 1998-99 war for independence.

The court says in a statement Monday that the man, identified only by his initials as Z.K., is suspected of belonging to a Serb police unit that killed four ethnic Albanians and tortured and robbed a family of 19 in a southern Kosovo village in March 1999.

Since the war the defendant, who was arrested last week, has been living in Kragujevac, Serbia.

About 10,000 people died and about 1,650 remain missing from the war, which ended after a 78-day NATO air war that stopped a bloody Serb crackdown against ethnic Albanian independence fighters.

Serbia has not recognized Kosovo's independence.