Leveling the [Kosovo] Playing Field

PRISTINA, Kosovo--Fatmir Limaj, a former high-ranking commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK), was taken into custody on 18 February in Kosovo where he is awaiting extradition to the Hague along with three other Kosovar Albanians accused of war crimes.

The arrest of Limaj--the vice president of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), chaired by former UCK leader Hashim Thaci--represents the first accusations The Hague has levelled against Kosovar Albanians for war crimes committed during the 1998 conflict. And the accusations are not expected to stop with these four recent indictments.

Limaj had just returned from Podgorica, Montenegro and Vienna, Austria where he had been since 14 February. Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) Carla Del Ponte expressed shock that the wanted war criminal had been allowed to leave the country in the first place. The prosecutor criticized international KFOR peacekeepers for failing to arrest Limaj on 14 February as he was leaving Kosovo.

“It escapes all understanding that Fatmir Limaj, a member of parliament, a public figure, could be allowed to leave Kosovo with that ease two and a half weeks after KFOR had been in possession of the indictment and arrest warrant,” Del Ponte said in a statement to the press.

In the meantime, Limaj has claimed that he planned to turn himself in to The Hague voluntarily, saying he had no prior knowledge of the indictment against him for war crimes against humanity committed during the 1998 conflict in Kosovo.

On Kosovo TV Kohavision, Limaj said that it was his obligation to respond to the “suspicions” of the ICTY, which he called “a very honorable authority.”

“Of course, I will obey the will and summons of Del Ponte and respond to her respectable authority,” Limaj said from in a telephone interview from Vienna just before he was preparing to return home to Pristina. Limja said he would be returning to Kosovo soon and would “appeal to them (the Hague authorities) not to make any big spectacle as I am ready to respond to all accusations.”

“I am very proud of my behavior in the past, and if you would ask me should I repeat my life again what would I change I would firmly say: Should I live my life over and over again I would not change anything, as I am convinced I served my country and my people, and I know my actions as member of the UCK were in conformity with international norms,” Limaj said.

“I protected 85 human lives preventing Serb forces from committing genocide in the area where I was at that time,” he added.

Limaj expressed great surprise when he learned that--based on the indictment against him--there is little chance for a plea of not guilty.

Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova urged cooperation with the ICTY. “It is a matter for the Hague tribunal and justice, and I am sure that if those people did not commit any crime, they will be released,” local media quoted him as saying. Rugova told Deutsche Welle’s Albanian service on 18 February that justice must be served without interference from political forces, adding that Kosovo is obliged to fully cooperate with The Hague.

Del Ponte said that the criminal trial of Limaj and two other arrested along with him, Haradin Balaj and Isak Musliu, would begin very soon.

The war crimes allegedly took place during the 1999 clashes between Serb forces and ethnic Albanian insurgents in a conflict that was settled by a United Nations peace accord. After three months of NATO bombing of Serb military targets between 24 March and 12 July 1999, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was compelled to sign an agreement intended to halt ethnic cleansing and begin the return of over one million Albanian refugees to a province that is still today under UN administration.

According to the indictment, the four former UCK members, Limaj, Musliu, Balaj, and Agim Murtezi--who is currently on the run--are accused of murder, harassment, and illegal imprisonment. More specifically, they stand accused of killing at least 17 Serbs and Albanians from Kosovo. According to the ICTY, Limaj was the commander of the UCK troops who held Serb and Albanian civilians in illegal prisons where Balaj and Musliu served as commanders and Murtezi served as a guard.

The ICTY claims that between May and July of 1999, at least 35 Serbs and Albanians from Shtimje, Drenas, and Lypjan were held in the makeshift prisons under inhumane conditions and repeatedly tortured.

“After Serb Forces took control of this area on 25 July 1998, Balaj and Murtezi forced 22 prisoners to move to the Berisha Mountains. On their way they met Limaj who gave a certain order,” the indictment reads. According to the indictment, seven men were murdered at Berisha. Limaj is also charged with killing a number of Albanians in secret prisons during that same time period.

In the meantime, rumors of more such arrests are causing anxiety among Kosovo’s Albanian leaders, many of whom are former UCK commanders-turned-political officials after the conflict. Many, like Limaj, who is vice president of the PDK party, fear they could face the same fate in an international court they once thought was targeting only the Serb side for war crimes committed during the conflict.

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It kind of sucks for the Albanians that they don't have the Democrats to back them up anymore like they used to.

You're right. We hear nothing much on the Albanians anymore.....like, right off the radar screen.

The silence on the Albanian's from this US administration is pretty peculiar, considering the weight of this legacy from Bubba, Halfbright....etc.

Albanian Hague defendant claims mistaken identity | 18:07 | SRNA

THE HAGUE -- Tuesday – One of three Kosovo Albanians indicted by the Hague Tribunal for crimes against Serb and Albanian civilians in the summer of 1998 says that he is not the person referred to in the indictment.

Instead, says Agim Murtezi, he has been arrested instead of a Kosovo Liberation Army commander of the same name.

Lawyer Stefan Burgon said today that the time Murtezi has spent in the Tribunal’s Scheveningen detention centre is a serious violation of his fundamental human rights.

During his five-day interrogation, says the lawyer, Murtezi has produced information in support of his claim, as well as information which will help in future investigations.

The other two suspects arrested with Murtezi are expected to appear in court this week and state whether they know him.

All three are charged with violations of the laws and customs of war and crimes against humanity in Kosovo in 1998.

[Source: B92, 25 Febr. 2003]

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