SITF hopes that indicted persons will surrender voluntarily, reactions continue
(All monitored broadcasters, Klan Kosova, RTK1&KTV)
The European Union’s Special Investigative Task Force (SITF) hopes that all the indicted persons will surrender voluntarily. SITF officials said that names of the accused persons will only be made public after the Special Tribunal will be set up.
“Based on the level of cooperation showed by Kosovo so far, the organization is confident that anyone who is indicted will surrender voluntarily and submit to the judicial process,” SITF spokesperson Joao Sousa told Radio Deutsche Welle.
Reactions against the report of SITF Prosecutor Clint Williamson also continued on Wednesday.
Former Member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Dick Marty, who initially drafted the report on war crimes allegations, in an interview with the Swiss Radio SRF said that he never put organ trade in the focus, but he rather spoke about few cases.
The US daily New York Times also dealt with Williamson’s report, considering it as a blow to Kosovo.
“Mr. Williamson’s statements are a blow to Kosovo, a poor country that has been struggling to find international legitimacy since it declared independence with the support of the United States and a majority of European Union countries,” NYT writes.
Former KLA Spokesperson Jakup Krasniqi also spoke about the report. In his Facebook account, Krasniqi considered Prosecutor Williamson’s three-year work as ‘much ado about nothing’.
Association of Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) War Veterans considered the report illogical, ridiculous, anti-historic and tendentious.
In the meantime, Humanitarian Law Centre (HLC) Kosovo considers that results of investigations carried out so far by the SITF team led by Prosecutor Clint Williamson firmly demonstrate that a persecution campaign against Serbs, Roma and other minority populations was carried out after the war in Kosovo.
In an opinion piece Denis MacShane, former UK government minister for Balkans, writes that the European Union has said it has no evidence linking Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi to organ trafficking during the war for independence in 1999, where Kosovo was liberated from Serbian occupation and oppression.
According to him, the US Prosecutor Clint Williamson, after a four-year investigation, concluded that Hashim Thaçi has not been involved in the murder of Serb prisoners and organ harvesting.
MacShane said that the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe (PACE) should at least apologise to Acting Prime Minister Thaçi, RTK1 and Klan Kosova reported.
Breedlove: Islamic radicalism a serious concern
(All monitored broadcasters, TV21)
NATO Supreme Allied Commander for Europe (SACEUR) General Philip M. Breedlove said on Wednesday in Prishtinë/Pristina that Islamic radicalism is a serious concern not only for Kosovo, but also beyond it. According to him, this problem is not expected to get any better, but worse.
Breedlove considers travel of Kosovo citizens or of other Balkan countries to conflict areas, such as one in Syria, dangerous. General Breedlove underlined that his visit to Kosovo is not related to the report issued by the Lead Prosecutor of the European Union SITF Clint Williamson.
Following the pictures published online by a Kosovo jihadist in Syria while committing crimes, Kosovo President Atifete Jahjaga gathered heads of security institutions to discuss religious extremism. President Jahjaga demanded from them to treat this threat to security of Kosovo, region and wider, with priority.
Jahjaga said that she will not allow Kosovo to become a source of extremism and shelter of criminals that provoke terror and hatred. She called on members of religious community to cooperate in prosecuting individuals standing behind the efforts to destabilize Kosovo and its long tradition of religious harmony.
LDK leader Isa Mustafa also reacted to these developments.
“Religion has started to manifest with uniforms and beards and with individuals that instead of faith in God’s mission, of love for humanity, propagate gender and religious hatred, kill and decapitate people by calling Allah, the least resemble our citizens,” Mustafa said.
Djuric: Kosovo Albanians and Serbs need a joint future
(RTK2, Klan Kosova)
Director of the Serbian Government Office for Kosovo Marko Djuric met with Belgrade’s liaison officer in Prishtinë/Pristina Dejan Pavicevic.
Later on during the Wednesday, Djuric also visited Saint Nicholas Church in Prishtinë/Pristina and talked to Gracanica/Graçanicë citizens.
Following the meeting with Pavicevic, Djuric said that Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo need a joint future and without hatred.
