Sorry, you need to enable JavaScript to visit this website.
Skip to main content

Franco-German Envoys Press Kosovo on Special Court (Balkan Insight)

German and French envoys are adding to diplomatic pressure on Kosovo not to try to stop the new Specialist Chambers – which will try former Kosovo guerrillas – from coming into operation. A joint German-French delegation met Kosovo officials on Wednesday to voice concern about recent failed attempts by Kosovo MPs to revoke the law establishing the Special Court, set up to try Kosovo Albanian war crimes. Germany's Envoy for South-Eastern Europe, Turkey and the EFTA States, Christina Hellbach, and the head of the French foreign ministry's Western Balkans Department, Thomas Bertin, are in Kosov

Kosovo War Victims Slam MPs’ Bid to Stop Court (Balkan Insight)

Survivors of the 1999 Kosovo war and rights campaigners criticised attempts by MPs in Pristina to stop the new Specialist Chambers, which will try former Kosovo Liberation Army fighters. War victims’ groups and Pristina-based rights campaigners criticised recent attempts by MPs in Pristina to revoke a law which allows the new Kosovo Specialist Chambers to operate. The president of the Association of Missing and Kidnapped Persons from Kosovo and Metohija, Ranko Djinovic, said that repealing the law would be an “injustice”. “It would be the greatest insult for the families [of victims], and i

Two Serbs Found Dead in Kosovo Village (Balkan Insight)

A Kosovo Serb man and woman were found dead on Monday evening in the village of Babimost/Babin Most in the Obiliq/Obilic municipality, but the cause of their deaths is so far unknown. The two Serbs’ bodies were discovered in the village of Babimost/Babin Most in central Kosovo on Monday evening, said Kosovo Police. “The medical team at the crime scene found the victims were dead, while an investigation into the case is ongoing,” said police spokesperson Baki Kelani. Police officers and investigative units were working on Tuesday morning in the backyard of the house where the bodies wer

Kosovo: War Court Challenged, Ex-Guerrillas Acquitted (Balkan Insight) 

MPs staged a dramatic intervention to try to stop the new special court which will try former Kosovo Liberation Army fighters, while courts in Pristina acquitted two prominent politicians and ex-guerrilla commanders. As the year drew to a close in Pristina, a group of MPs made a controversial attempt on the night of December 22 to scrap the law that established the new Kosovo Specialist Chambers, as the new Hague-based court prepares to issue its first indictments of former Kosovo Liberation Army fighters for wartime and post-war crimes. Forty-three MPs out of a total of 120 signed a demand f