‘Injustice has been done’
Former KLA spokesperson Jakup Krasniqi, one of Thaci’s co-defendants, pleaded not guilty to the charges when he made his first appearance at the court on Monday.
“It is not right that I am here, an injustice has been done against me,” said Krasniqi, 69. a former Kosovar politician who was arrested by armed EU police late Wednesday in Pristina.
“I have never treated people in my life in this way. It was war and we fought against the Serbs who committed genocide in Kosovo,” he said, adding that the KLA was in a “joint liberation enterprise” with the United States, NATO and UN.
The other co-defendants are Thaci’s closest political ally Kadri Veseli and key KLA figure Rexhep Selimi.
‘George Washington of Kosovo’
The bitter conflict killed ethnic Albanian Kosovars for the most part and only ended when a NATO air campaign forced Serb forces to withdraw.
Top Serbian military and police officials were later convicted of war crimes in other international courts.
Thaci downed his guns after the war and joined politics, leading then US vice president Joe Biden to once hail him as the “George Washington of Kosovo.”
But rebel leaders of the KLA have also been accused of revenge attacks on Serbs, Roma, and ethnic Albanian rivals during and after the war.
Many former KLA chiefs have gone on to dominate politics in Kosovo, with many still seeing him as a liberation hero.
READ MORE: Kosovo’s President Thaci, nine others indicted for war crimes
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