March “Thousands of people protested, many wearing KLA uniform

Thousands of protesters were present in the capital to show their support to Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veselin, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi.

Reuters reported on this protest. This report points out that thousands were participants and that final statements of this judgment are under way these days.

Report of Reuters:

Thousands in Kosovo protest war crimes trial against former KLA commanders

Thousands of people gathered in Pristina on Tuesday, carrying Kosovo Liberation Army banners (UÇK) to protest the trial of former KLA leaders, including a former president, charged with war crimes during the 199899 war for independence.

Former President Hashim Thaci, former Parliament Speakers Jakup Krasniqi and Kadri Veselini, as well as former President Rexhep Selimi were arrested in 2020 and sent to face trial at Kosovo's special war crimes court in The Hague.

Thaci and three other former KLA commanders are accused of persecution, murder, torture and forced disappearance of persons during and shortly after the 199899 uprising, which eventually brought independence to the Albanian majority region from Serbia.

They deny all charges.

This week the court is hearing concluding arguments under way, before judges issue a final decision within three months. Prosecutors have been seeking a 45-year sentence for each.

The “those who deserve to be in The Hague are invaders, not deliverers,” said Miran Zeka, 49, who had come from Albania to protest in Pristina.

“We fought on our land, we did not go to Serbia to fight,” said Bekim Muja, 53, Kosovo war veteran 199899.

Many protesters wore KLA uniforms, while others waved flags of the KLA, Kosovo and Albania. Supporters carried banners with the inscription “Freedom has the name” and photos of Thaci and others written “Heroj of War and Peace”.

Thaci, 57, served as prime minister, foreign minister and president of independent Kosovo between 2008 and 2020.

More than 13,000 people -- most of them Kosovo Albanians -- are believed to have lost their lives during the 1990s uprising, when Kosovo was still a province of Serbia under then nationalist President Slobodan Milochev, whose troops violently oppressed ethnic Albanians.

Kosovo's Specialised Chambers, made up of international judges and lawyers, were established in 2015 to handle war crimes cases under Kosovo's law against former KLA fighters. The war crimes tribunal was set up outside the small Balkan country due to concerns about witness intimidation, as former KLA leaders are seen by many in Kosovo as heroes of national liberation. /Periscope