PRISTINA: Kosovo lawmakers have approved a law to set up a special war crimes court paving the way for indictments to be filed against top wartime leaders and current politicians.
The overnight vote was the last hurdle for creating the legal body, which will have international judges and prosecutors try ethnic Albanian guerrillas for the alleged killing of civilian detainees, most of them Serbs immediately after the war ended in 1999.
The assembly voted 73-1 in favor of the law despite an opposition boycott. On Monday, the assembly amended the constitution so that the court could be created.
The vote follows pressure from Kosovo’s Western backers, the US and European Union countries, after a similar vote in June failed to pass the legislation.
The US then warned its Kosovo it won’t stop Serbia’s ally, Russia, to bring up the issue at the UN Security Council if Pristina fails to make legal provision for the court to be formed.
Once the court is created, indictments can be filed and court proceedings held in a European country, most likely the Netherlands, to avoid witness intimidation and ensure a credible judicial process. Kosovo’s weak justice system is prone to meddling from top politicians.
The indictments are sealed, but diplomats have about 10 names that could be singled out, some of them senior wartime leaders.
In 2010, a Council of Europe report claimed that leaders of the now disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army, including former Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Serbs, Roma and ethnic Albanians suspected of collaborating with Serbs. Thaci denies the claims.
The report also said there were cases in which some of the captives were killed for their organs to be sold on the international black market. A US prosecutor who investigated the claims said there wasn’t enough evidence to file indictments on those particular allegations though he didn’t rule out that proof might surface.
Clint Williamson, who led the task force set up to investigate the allegations made in the 2010 report, has said the task force has collected compelling evidence that the KLA leadership sanctioned crimes that included “unlawful killings, abductions, enforced disappearances (and) illegal detentions in camps in Kosovo and Albania.”
Williamson said these crimes were done in an organized fashion and also targeted ethnic Albanian political opponents of the KLA.
The crimes are believed to have happened in the chaotic days of the summer of 1999 as Serb forces withdrew from Kosovo and NATO troops gradually moved in, following a 78-day bombing campaign against Serb forces.
The period left a brief power vacuum that enabled the alleged organized persecution of non-Albanian minorities and political opponents.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, but Serbia has vowed never to recognize the move.
Kosovo passes law on war crimes court
Kosovo passes law on war crimes court
In show of support, Canada, France open consulates in Greenland
- Decisions taken in a strong show of support for Greenland government amid threats by US President Trump to seize the island
COPENHAGEN, Denmark: Canada and France, which both adamantly oppose Donald Trump’s wish to control Greenland, will open consulates in the Danish autonomous territory’s capital on Friday, in a strong show of support for the local government.
Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has repeatedly insisted that Washington needs to control the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island for security reasons.
The US president last month backed off his threats to seize Greenland after saying he had struck a “framework” deal with NATO chief Mark Rutte to ensure greater American influence.
A US-Denmark-Greenland working group has been established to discuss ways to meet Washington’s security concerns in the Arctic, but the details of the talks have not been made public.
While Denmark and Greenland have said they share Trump’s security concerns, they have insisted that sovereignty and territorial integrity are a “red line” in the discussions.
“In a sense, it’s a victory for Greenlanders to see two allies opening diplomatic representations in Nuuk,” said Jeppe Strandsbjerg, a political scientist at the University of Greenland.
“There is great appreciation for the support against what Trump has said.”
French President Emmanuel Macron announced Paris’s plans to open a consulate during a visit to Nuuk in June, where he expressed Europe’s “solidarity” with Greenland and criticized Trump’s ambitions.
The newly-appointed French consul, Jean-Noel Poirier, has previously served as ambassador to Vietnam.
Canada meanwhile announced in late 2024 that it would open a consulate in Greenland to boost cooperation.
The opening of the consulates is “a way of telling Donald Trump that his aggression against Greenland and Denmark is not a question for Greenland and Denmark alone, it’s also a question for European allies and also for Canada as an ally, as a friend of Greenland and the European allies also,” Ulrik Pram Gad, Arctic expert at the Danish Institute of International Studies, told AFP.
“It’s a small step, part of a strategy where we are making this problem European,” said Christine Nissen, security and defense analyst at the Europa think tank.
“The consequences are obviously not just Danish. It’s European and global.”
Recognition
According to Strandsbjerg, the two consulates — which will be attached to the French and Canadian embassies in Copenhagen — will give Greenland an opportunity to “practice” at being independent, as the island has long dreamt of cutting its ties to Denmark one day.
The decision to open diplomatic missions is also a recognition of Greenland’s growing autonomy, laid out in its 2009 Self-Government Act, Nissen said.
“In terms of their own quest for sovereignty, the Greenlandic people will think to have more direct contact with other European countries,” she said.
That would make it possible to reduce Denmark’s role “by diversifying Greenland’s dependence on the outside world, so that it is not solely dependent on Denmark and can have more ties for its economy, trade, investments, politics and so on,” echoed Pram Gad.
Greenland has had diplomatic ties with the European Union since 1992, with Washington since 2014 and with Iceland since 2017.
Iceland opened its consulate in Nuuk in 2013, while the United States, which had a consulate in the Greenlandic capital from 1940 to 1953, reopened its mission in 2020.
The European Commission opened its office in 2024.
