THE HAGUE: Kosovo President Hashim Thaci has been charged with 10 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the country’s conflict in the 1990s, a tribunal in The Hague said on Wednesday.
Wartime intelligence chief and former parliamentary speaker Kadri Veseli is also accused of war crimes, the Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC) said, adding that the charges against both men were brought on April 24 but not revealed publicly.
“The indictment alleges that Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veseli and the other charged suspects are criminally responsible for nearly 100 murders,” the KSC said in a statement.
The accused are also facing other charges such as enforced disappearance of persons, persecution and torture, the tribunal said.
The crimes alleged in the indictment “involved hundreds of known victims of Kosovo Albanian, Serb, Roma, and other ethnicities and include political opponents,” it added.
Prosecutors said they decided to make the accusations public because Thaci and Veseli had made “repeated attempts” to obstruct the KSC.
Thaci is currently preparing for a summit at the White House on Saturday with Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic, and local media reports suggested he had already left for the US. His officials could not be reached to confirm the report.
The White House meeting was organized by the US special envoy to Serbia and Kosovo Richard Grenell, who has ruffled European feathers by launching a diplomatic process between the two sides parallel to decade-long talks mediated by the EU.
Grenell has denied trying to overshadow the EU-led process, saying his meeting will focus on boosting economic ties.Trump was not expected to attend the meeting.
The EU-backed tribunal was established in 2015 to investigate crimes by independence-seeking ethnic Albanian guerrillas against mainly Serb civilians during the 1998-1999 war.
The conflict pitted Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas seeking independence for the southern Serbian province of Kosovo against Serbia’s forces, who withdrew from the territory after an 11-week NATO bombing campaign.
The tribunal was created after a Council of Europe report tied former guerrilla leaders including Thaci to atrocities.
The court announced in April that it had filed charges against high-ranking Kosovo officials without naming them, but speculation was already rife that the indictment included Thaci.
Asked in April whether he would resign if he was charged, Thaci told local media he was not even thinking about it and would “respond positively” if he was asked to appear at the tribunal.
Kosovo’s outgoing prime minister, Ramush Haradinaj, resigned last July after being summoned by the prosecutor for interrogation as a suspect.
Veseli said in November he had been summoned by the court to be questioned.
The KSC opened its doors in The Hague as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was winding down after almost 25 years of prosecuting crimes committed in the Balkans after Yugoslavia’s break-up in the early 1990s.
Haradinaj was acquitted of war crimes by the ICTY in 2012.
Kosovo’s independence war claimed around 13,000 lives, the majority of whom were ethnic Albanians.
The territory unilaterally declared its independence in 2008 with backing from the United States and most of the West.
But Serbia and its allies China and Russia have never accepted the move, and the status of Kosovo remains a major source of tension in the Balkans.
Kosovo president charged with war crimes over 1990s killings
https://arab.news/j5gqq
Kosovo president charged with war crimes over 1990s killings
- Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC): The indictment alleges that Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veseli and the other charged suspects are criminally responsible for nearly 100 murders
- Prosecutors said they decided to make the accusations public because Thaci and Veseli had made “repeated attempts” to obstruct the KSC
India accelerates free trade agreements against backdrop of US tariffs
- India signed a CEPA with Oman on Thursday and a CETA with the UK in July
- Delhi is also in advanced talks for trade pacts with the EU, New Zealand, Chile
NEW DELHI: India has accelerated discussions to finalize free trade agreements with several nations, as New Delhi seeks to offset the impact of steep US import tariffs and widen export destinations amid uncertainties in global trade.
India signed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with Oman on Thursday, which allows India to export most of its goods without paying tariffs, covering 98 percent of the total value of India’s exports to the Gulf nation.
The deal comes less than five months after a multibillion-dollar trade agreement with the UK, which cut tariffs on goods from cars to alcohol, and as Indian trade negotiators are in advanced talks with New Zealand, the EU and Chile for similar partnerships.
They are part of India’s “ongoing efforts to expand its trade network and liberalize its trade,” said Anupam Manur, professor of economics at the Takshashila Institution.
“The renewed efforts to sign bilateral FTAs are partly an after-effect of New Delhi realizing the importance of diversifying trade partners, especially after India’s biggest export market, the US, levied tariff rates of up to 50 percent on India.”
Indian exporters have been hit hard by the hefty tariffs that went into effect in August.
Months of negotiations with Washington have not clarified when a trade deal to bring down the tariffs would be signed, while the levies have weighed on sectors such as textiles, auto components, metals and labor-intensive manufacturing.
The FTAs with other nations will “help partially in mitigating the effects of US tariffs,” Manur said.
In particular, Oman can “act as a gateway to other Gulf countries and even parts of Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Africa,” and the free trade deal will most likely benefit “labor-intensive sectors in India,” he added.
The chances of concluding a deal with Washington “will prove to be difficult,” said Arun Kumar, a retired economics professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.
“With the US, the chances of coming to (an agreement) are a bit difficult, because they want to get our agriculture market open, which we cannot do. They want us to reduce trade with Russia. That’s also difficult for India to do,” he told Arab News.
US President Donald Trump has threatened sanctions over India’s historic ties with Moscow and its imports of Russian oil, which Washington says help fund Moscow’s ongoing war with Ukraine.
“President Trump is constantly creating new problems, like with H-1B visa and so on now. So some difficulty or the other is expected. That’s why India is trying to build relationships with other nations,” Kumar said, referring to increased vetting and delays under the Trump administration for foreign workers, who include a large number of Indian nationals.
“Substituting for the US market is going to be tough. So certainly, I think India should do what it can do in terms of promoting trade with other countries.”
India has free trade agreements with more than 10 countries, including comprehensive economic partnership agreements with South Korea, Japan, and the UAE.
It is in talks with the EU to conclude an FTA, amid new negotiations launched this year for trade agreements, including with New Zealand and Chile.
India’s approach to trade partnerships has been “totally transformed,” Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said in a press briefing following the signing of the CEPA with Oman, which Indian officials aim to enter into force in three months.
“Now we don’t do FTAs with other developing nations; our focus is on the developed world, with whom we don’t compete,” he said. “We complement and therefore open up huge opportunities for our industry, for our manufactured goods, for our services.”
