• COVID - 19: 13 deaths, 501 new cases (media)
• Hoti: We have taken necessary steps to fight COVID – 19 (Kallxo)
• Kurti wants Kosovo government to defend indictees at The Hague (media)
• Williamson: If Kosovo wouldn’t form Special Court, UN would do it (media)
• Lack of coordination in government for Washington pledges (Koha)
• Finance Minister: War against thieves will continue with all capacities (media)
• Fate of ‘disappeared’ Yugoslav soldiers from Kosovo still unknown (BIRN)

COVID - 19: 13 deaths, 501 new cases (media)

501 new cases of COVID – 19 and 13 deaths from the virus have been recorded in the last 24 hours in Kosovo, the Kosovo National Institute for Public Health said in a statement on Sunday. 250 patients have recovered from the virus during this time. The highest number of new cases is from the municipality of Prishtina (249). There are 11,670 active cases of coronavirus in Kosovo. Several news websites reported on Sunday afternoon that no tests for the virus were conducted at the National Institute on Sunday, with Koha reporting that people were told to return for tests on Monday morning.

Hoti: We have taken necessary steps to fight COVID – 19 (Kallxo)

Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti said on Sunday that the Kosovo government has undertaken all necessary steps to fight COVID – 19. Hoti said in a Facebook post that the University Clinical Center of Kosovo (UCCK) and regional hospitals have raised the highest level of mobilisation among the health staff. He also said that operational plans have been prepared in UCCK clinics in Prishtina to provide emergency services according to priorities. Hoti said over 2,000 coronavirus tests are being conducted on a daily basis.

Prishtina deputy mayor suggests hotels to be used as hospitals (media)

Prishtina Deputy Mayor Muhedin Nushi said in an interview with Ekonomia Online that the number of new cases with COVID – 19 will continue to rise in the coming days. He said that 40 percent of infected at the country level is a large number compared to other countries.

“The rise in the number of infected persons was expected and this is not the end. We believe that this number will continue to rise, also based on the number of tests being conducted at the Kosovo-level. Nearly 30 percent of infected cases are in the territory of Prishtina, and 40 percent at the country level. This is a high percentage compared to other countries. We have asked for more tests to be conducted in the other municipalities too,” he said.

Nushi proposed that the government and municipal emergency staffs must start choosing hotels and other facilities to treat infected persons.

Kurti wants Kosovo government to defend indictees at The Hague (media)

Vetevendosje Movement (VV) leader Albin Kurti told a press conference on Sunday that the Kosovo government must engage in the defense of former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army who are being tried by the Specialist Chambers in The Hague.

“Individuals are not being tried at The Hague; and the indictees cannot be defended as individuals. The state of Kosovo must organise and coordinate the defense of the indictees. We saw that they all have their own lawyers, but coordination is required by the state. The KLA did not belong to any individual, it belonged to all, and we must all defend it,” Kurti said.

Kurti also said that the claims of the Specialist Chambers that there was a joint criminal enterprise within the Kosovo Liberation Army are not true. “The prosecution is wrong. There was no such structure,” he said.

Williamson: If Kosovo wouldn’t form Special Court, UN would do it (media)

Most news websites covered an interview that Clint Williamson, former lead prosecutor of the Special Investigative Task Force, gave to Ora News, highlighting his remarks that if Kosovo would not have formed the Specialist Chambers, the United Nations Security Council would have done this. According to Williamson, Russia insisted the most on the formation of the court.

“When Dick Marty’s report at the Council of Europe was published, a number of European governments insisted on the need for a full criminal investigation. At the time, Russia and Serbia called for the formation of a new UN court that would handle the issue. The United States and the European Union, I believe, had a fair approach. The United States were responsible for rule of law matters in Kosovo and the European Union was supposed to oversee the investigations and the ensuing court proceedings. This resulted in the formation of the special investigative task force which I led as lead prosecutor in Brussels. Even after this, Russia was insisting on a UN court and this led to a very serious debate at the United Nations Security Council. The fact is that the majority in the Security Council supported the formation of another court,” he said.

“If the European Union would not have done this, if the EU would not have been able to conduct an investigation, the matter would have bene returned to the Security Council and it would vote on the formation of a UN court. The United States, the United Kingdom and France made it clear to the Kosovo government that they would not use the right of veto to block an investigation into the matter, because the allegations were very grave. So Kosovo’s authorities were faced with the dilemma: they would either allow the European Union to do this in Kosovo and cooperate with it, or the issue would return to the UN Security Council where the majority of member would vote in favor of the formation of the court. The United States and the European Union did not want this to be taken away from the hands of the EU and to be sent back to the Security Council. The latter would have happened if the European scenario would not have been implemented.”

Lack of coordination in government for Washington pledges (Koha)

The news website reported on Sunday that with the changes following the U.S. presidential election, Kosovo is sending signals that it will stand behind the pledges made in the September 4 agreement signed in Washington. Different members of the ruling coalition are showing differences with regards to the point of the agreement that foresees a one-year moratorium for Kosovo’s application to join international organisations.

Political analyst and reporter, Branislav Krstic, said neither Kosovo and Serbia have shown readiness to implement the agreement and that this hesitation is expected to grow following Joe Biden’s election.

“The implementation of the September 4 agreement is not in the hands of politicians in Prishtina and Belgrade. This will depend on the approach of the new administration toward the agreement.

If the Biden administration believes that the document contains points that must be implemented, the parties will certainly be convinced to do so. But I am not sure that Biden will insist on the implementation of the agreement as a whole,” he said.

Finance Minister: War against thieves will continue with all capacities (media)

Kosovo’s Minister of Finance, Hykmete Bajrami, said on Sunday that “the war against thieves” will continue with all local and international capacities and that criminals will be prosecuted regardless of their ties. Bajrami said in a Facebook post that members of the Guardia di Finanza together with the Italian Ambassador Nicola Orlando visited the Ministry of Finance on October 6 to discuss an EU-funded joint project between the Guardia di Finanza, the Kosovo Tax Administration, Kosovo Customs and the Financial Intelligence Unit aimed at fighting evasion, informality, smuggling, money laundering and other illegal activities. “We agreed that our institutions will identify areas of cooperation … Following the theft at the Kosovo Treasury, in my capacity as Minister of Finance, I sent a letter to the Italian Ambassador suggesting that the Treasury too must be included in the areas of cooperation, more specifically the auditing in the Treasury. At the same time, I have called on EU Ambassador Tomas Szunyog for the EU to provide financial aid for the Guardia di Finanza to audit the Treasury,” she said.

Fate of ‘disappeared’ Yugoslav soldiers from Kosovo still unknown (BIRN)

Three decades on, it is still not known what happened to dozens of Kosovo Albanian conscript soldiers who went missing while serving in the Yugoslav People’s Army during the violent break-up of Yugoslavia.

Muhamet Gashi remembers that it was a rainy day on June 30, 1991 when his son Vesel left to begin his mandatory military service.

Vesel had just turned 21, Kosovo was still part of the united Yugoslav state, and in recent months he had already received three call-ups to join the Yugoslav People’s Army. This time he couldn’t put it off any longer.

Gashi said that military police came to his house in Studenqan, a village six kilometres from the southern Kosovo town of Suha Reke/Suvareka, several times to look for his son.

“[Vesel] received three invitations from the Army. The fourth time they came to our house and told us that if he keeps refusing the call-up, he will go to jail and not into the army,” said Gashi, who is now 77, told BIRN at the family house.

At that point, ethnic tensions were rife and the bloody collapse of federal Yugoslavia was already looming. Newspapers were full of reports of the killings of Kosovo Albanians serving in the Yugoslav military.

“The murder of Albanians in the military was something that was well-known. We knew that there was no safety for Albanians,” Gashi said.

“In his attempt to escape the Army, Vesel went into hiding at his uncle’s in another village. But the call-up was such that if he did not answer, he would be arrested so he was forced to go.”

Vesel was deployed to a barracks in the Croatian town of Bjelovar. His family only managed to talk to him three times by phone while he was serving with the military.

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