Thousands demonstrate in Kosovo to protest the trial of former President Hashim Thaci

3 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –

Thousands of people have demonstrated this Sunday in the center of Pristina to protest the trial of the Special Court for Kosovo in The Hague against former president Hashim Thaci for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity by participating in a campaign of persecution, assassinations, torture and forced disappearances both of Kosovo Serbs and other communities and of the opposition to the Kosovo Albanian militia of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK), where he served as a political leader during the open conflict between 1998 and 1999.

The demonstrators have participated in the ‘March for Justice’ in support of the leaders of the UCK, a paramilitary organization that they have indicated is “the most sublime value that the nation has created”. In turn, they have shown their desire for their “fighters” to return, since they are being held in The Hague.

“We march to demand justice, for those who, starting tomorrow, will face a judicial process, in which they are not by their own names, but because of the glorious era they represent (…) We do not doubt that they will return victors, as they came, as liberators “, they have expressed, according to the newspaper ‘Koha’.

Along with Thaci, the political leader of the UCK, three other former leaders of this guerrilla group are indicted: the former leader of the Democratic Party of Kosovo Kadri Veseli, the head of the parliamentary group of the Kosovar opposition party Vetevendosje, Rexhep Selimi, and the president of the national council of the Social Democratic Initiative party, Jakup Krasniqi.

Specifically, the court accused Thaci — resigned from his position in 2020, after hearing the statement of charges — and the three former UCK officials with their participation in a “joint criminal enterprise” that, from March 1998 to September of 1999, focused on “gaining and exercising control of all of Kosovo with measures that include “illegal bullying”, violence and the “elimination” of those who “appear to be opponents”.