Ali Ahmeti summoned to testify in The Hague

[Carlin15]

Links in Macedonian:
https://nezavisen.mk/301354-2/
https://www.novamakedonija.com.mk/ma...-%D0%BE%D0%B4/
https://360stepeni.mk/ali-ahmeti-pov...tva-na-kosovo/
https://www.slobodnaevropa.mk/a/30741951.html

Link in English:
https://english.republika.mk/news/ma...-in-the-hague/

Ali Ahmeti was called to testify before war crimes prosecutors in the Hague

DUI party leader Ali Ahmeti informed the public that he has been summoned as a witness before the Hague special prosecutors for war crimes in Kosovo.

It’s still not clear in what case will Ahmeti be interrogated, and whether it’s the same war crimes case against Kosovo President Hashim Thaci. Ahmeti was involved in the 1999 Kosovo war, and in 2001 he caused a civil war in Macedonia, leading the NLA/UCK group on attacks against Macedonian forces and civilians. He received a pardon in the Ohrid treaty, signed under the patronage of the US and the EU, and in 2002 he formed the DUI party, which has been almost indispensable in forming coalitions in Macedonia ever since.

The invitation comes as DUI is flexing its muscles to exact maximum concessions from its would-be coalition partners after the elections in Macedonia delivered a very narrow result, with no major party having a clear shot at forming a Government without Ahmeti.

[Liberator of Makedonija]

Now this is a development

[Spirit]

Let’s hope this terrorist scum gets what he deserves

[Carlin15]

Kosovo Ambassador to Macedonia Questioned by Specialist Prosecutor

URL:
https://balkaninsight.com/2020/07/30...st-prosecutor/

Kosovo's Ambassador to Macedonia, Gjergj Dedaj, said on Wednesday that he had been contacted by the Hague-based Kosovo Special Prosecutor's Office for a potential interview regarding the Kosovo war.


Kosovo’s Ambassador to Macedonia, Gjergj Dedaj, on Wednesday said the Hague-based Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor’s Office, SPO, had contacted him – also confirming that he had already testified to the office about a former disagreement he had had with the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA.

“I have been questioned as a witness [already],” Dedaj told Kosovo’s public broadcaster, RTK, on Wednesday.

On July 23, Ali Ahmeti, leader of the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, the junior party in North Macedonia’s ruling coalition, who was also a fighter in the 1998-99 Kosovo war, said he had accepted a SPO request to interview him.

Kosovo President Hashim Thaci – the KLA’s political leader during the 1998-99 war – was interviewed by the prosecutors for four days from July 13. “They can easily conclude that I have not committed any war crimes,” Thaci had told the media on July 17, after the interview ended.

The Prosecutor’s Office announced on June 24 that it had filed a ten-count indictment, charging Thaci, PDK leader Kadri Veseli and other former KLA members with a range of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, enforced disappearance of persons, persecution, and torture.

A Deputy Minister for several years, Dedaj was appointed Ambassador to North Macedonia in October 2018.

“That disagreement [with the KLA] has been closed and cleared,” Dedaj told RTK, claiming that he had “explained this to the Specialist Chambers”.

Dedaj said the SPO had not asked him about alleged political killings. Instead, the prosecutors had asked him if he had received threats from anyone, and whether he would be available if summoned for another interview.

“I told them I am always ready because both Kosovo and the KLA are clean,” Dedaj said, adding that the KLA had been “an ally of NATO” during the Kosovo conflict of the 1990s. “We are the victims … It is an honour for me to testify about the pure fight of the KLA,” he said.

Dedaj said he considered the recent increased activity of the SPO “inhuman” and reflected “Russian-Serbian [pressure] and the tendencies of a political court to equalise Serbian crimes and Kosovo’s victims”.

Twelve of his own family members were killed during the Kosovo war in the late 1990s, and he said he remained determined to get the Specialist Chambers to “uncover the crimes and the Serbian genocide in Kosovo”.