THE HAGUE, Netherlands: Former Kosovo president Hashim Thaci on Tuesday insisted he is an innocent man as he addressed a panel of international judges hearing his trial on 10 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
At the end of his lawyers’ opening statement to the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, Thaci stood up, buttoned up his gray pinstripe suit jacket and told black-robed judges that he expects evidence to lead to his acquittal saying that “victims do not obtain justice when the innocent are pursued.”
Thaci was a student who came out of what he described as political exile in Switzerland to join Kosovo’s struggle for independence from Serbia. He was embraced by Western leaders who invited him to 1999 peace talks in France in his role as political director of the Kosovo Liberation Army and was seen as a leader who could guide the country toward independence.
Thaci said he regretted that late US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and other international diplomats who have died in the nearly quarter of a century since the war could not speak on his behalf.
“They would have testified on my part about what I have said and what I did during that very important time in Kosovo’s history,” he said. “I’m happy that many others like them have come forward to testify about my innocence.”
But prosecutors paint a different picture, alleging Thaci and three other former senior leaders of the KLA on trial with him were responsible for murders and the illegal detention and abuse of people they considered traitors or collaborators with Serb forces.
“I’m innocent of all these allegations,” Thaci said. “However, I’m ready to face this new challenge and succeed for my family, my people and my country.”
Defense lawyer Gregory Kehoe told judges that Thaci had no “effective command and control” over the KLA at the time international prosecutors hold him responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed by members of the guerilla force in Kosovo’s 1998-99 war for independence from Serbia.
The issue of how much control Thaci and three other former high-ranking KLA leaders on trial with him had over KLA fighters will be key in the trial that opened Monday and is expected to last many months.
Thaci and his fellow accused, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi are each charged with offenses including murder, torture and persecution allegedly committed across Kosovo and northern Albania from 1998 to September 1999, during and after the war.
Kehoe’s opening statement aimed to counter prosecutors’ assertions on the trial’s opening day that Thaci and three-co-defendants who were all members of the KLA general staff who pursued a policy of targeting civilians perceived as collaborators and traitors.
Prosecution lawyer Matt Halling told judges Monday: “Each of the four accused wielded power, authority and influence” which enabled them enact the policy.
The trial is being held at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, a branch of the Kosovo legal system that was established in The Hague in part due to fears about witness safety and security.
The court in The Hague and a linked prosecutor’s office were created after a 2011 report by the Council of Europe, a human rights body, that included allegations that KLA fighters trafficked human organs taken from prisoners and killed Serbs and fellow ethnic Albanians. The organ harvesting allegations weren’t included in the indictment against Thaci.
“We now know that both myself and the KLA, as well as the people of Kosovo, as well as all Albanians, have been vindicated of those allegations,” Thaci said, referring to the organ harvesting claims. “The truth has been told and the black clouds over Kosovo have been lifted.”
Most of the 13,000 people who died in the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo were ethnic Albanians. A 78-day campaign of NATO air strikes against Serbian forces ended the fighting. About 1 million ethnic Albanian Kosovars were driven from their homes.
The trial triggered a large demonstration in Kosovo on Sunday in support of the four defendants and another protest on Monday in The Hague by hundreds of Kosovars who waved flags and banners, including one that proclaimed: “KLA fought for freedom.”
Ex-Kosovo president tells international judges he’s innocent
https://arab.news/jqb8u
Ex-Kosovo president tells international judges he’s innocent
- Thaci was a student who came out of what he described as political exile in Switzerland to join Kosovo's struggle for independence from Serbia
- "However, I’m ready to face this new challenge and succeed for my family, my people and my country,” Thaci said
Uganda partially restores internet after president wins 7th term
- “The internet shutdown implemented two days before the elections limited access to information, freedom of association, curtailed economic activities ... it also created suspicion and mistrust on the electoral process,” the team said in their report
KAMPALA: Ugandan authorities have partially restored internet services late after 81-year-old President Yoweri Museveni won a seventh term to extend his rule into a fifth decade with a landslide victory rejected by the opposition.
Users reported being able to reconnect to the internet and some internet service providers sent out a message to customers saying the regulator had ordered them to restore services excluding social media.
“We have restored internet so that businesses that rely on internet can resume work,” David Birungi, spokesperson for Airtel Uganda, one of the country’s biggest telecom companies said. He added that the state communications regulator had ordered that social media remain shut down.
The state-run Uganda Communications Commission said it had cut off internet to curb “misinformation, disinformation, electoral fraud and related risks.” The opposition, however, criticized the move saying it was to cement control over the electoral process and guarantee a win for the incumbent.
The electoral body in the East African country on Saturday declared Museveni the winner of Thursday’s poll with 71.6 percent of the vote, while his rival pop star-turned-politician Bobi Wine was credited with 24 percent of the vote.
A joint report from an election observer team from the African Union and other regional blocs criticized the involvement of the military in the election and the authorities’ decision to cut off internet.
“The internet shutdown implemented two days before the elections limited access to information, freedom of association, curtailed economic activities ... it also created suspicion and mistrust on the electoral process,” the team said in their report.
In power since 1986 and currently Africa’s third longest-ruling head of state, Museveni’s latest win means he will have been in power for nearly half a century when his new term ends in 2031.
He is widely thought to be preparing his son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, to take over from him. Kainerugaba is currently head of the military and has expressed presidential ambitions.
Wine, who was taking on Museveni for a second time, has rejected the results of the latest vote and alleged mass fraud during the election.
Scattered opposition protests broke out late on Saturday after results were announced, according to a witness and police.
In Magere, a suburb in Kampala’s north where Wine lives, a group of youths burned tires and erected barricades in the road prompting police to respond with tear gas.
Police spokesperson Racheal Kawala said the protests had been quashed and that arrests were made but said the number of those detained would be released later.
Wine’s whereabouts were unknown early on Sunday after he said in a post on X he had escaped a raid by the military on his home. People close to him said he remained at an undisclosed location in Uganda. Wine was briefly held under house arrest following the previous election in 2021.
Wine has said hundreds of his supporters were detained during the months leading up to the vote and that others have been tortured.
Government officials have denied those allegations and say those who have been detained have violated the law and will be put through due process.
