President meets prosecutors in war crimes case
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Kosovo’s president Monday visited prosecutors at The Hague who have charged him with criminal responsibility for crimes including nearly 100 murders during and after his nation’s battle for independence from Serbia, saying his visit was “the price for freedom” for his country.
“Today, I’m here to respect what I dreamed and fought for. A free and independent Kosovo based on individual rights, multiethnic society and rule of law,” Hashim Thaci told reporters outside the Kosovo Specialist Chambers headquarters. “I am ready to face the new challenge and succeed for my son, my family, my people and my country.”
In a television interview aired Sunday, Thaci said he was going to The Hague to prove to prosecutors investigating alleged war crimes linked to the 19981999 armed conflict in Kosovo between ethnic Albanian separatists and Serbia that he had broken no international laws.
“Nobody can rewrite history,” he said Monday. “This is the price for freedom. I believe in peace, truth, reconciliation and justice.”
Thaci didn’t take any questions before walking into the court to discuss with prosecutors the indictment they filed against him in April. A pretrial judge is studying the indictment and hasn’t yet decided whether to confirm or reject the charges.
The indictment charges Thaci, Kosovo’s former parliamentary speaker, Kadri Veseli, and other suspects with crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, enforced disappearances, persecution and torture.
Thaci was a commander of the Kosovo Liberation army, or KLA, that fought for independence from Serbia. The war left more than 10,000 dead — most of them ethnic Albanians — and 1,641 are still unaccounted for. It ended after a 78day NATO air campaign against Serbian troops.
The former ethnic Albaniandominated province declared independence from Serbia in 2008, which Belgrade doesn’t recognize.
Thaci’s visit to The Hague came a day after the European Union praised leaders of Serbia and Kosovo for resuming longstalled talks on normalizing their tense relations and for setting up a facetoface meeting in Brussels later this week.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti held video talks mediated by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, aimed at resuscitating the BelgradePristina dialogue process, which has been frozen since November 2018.