Kosovo Albanians Outraged at New Charges Against Guerrilla Leaders

Enver Hoxhaj stops his tractor near to where a Kosovo Liberation Army guerrilla unit was based 24 years ago, during the war.

In the pastoral village of Budakova/Budakovo in Kosovo's Suhareka/Suva Reka municipality, Hoxhaj then joins some of his former guerrilla comrades in the garden of a nearby café.

The village is one of three locations of alleged KLA detention centres where it's claimed that crimes were committed - crimes for which men who later became major political figures in post-war Kosovo are alleged to have had command responsibility.

These crimes were recently added to an existing indictment charging four high-profile wartime guerrilla leaders with war crimes and crimes against humanity. They include the former political director of the KLA, Hashim Thaci, who later became Kosovo's president, as well as Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi.

The amended indictment alleges that between July 4, 1998 and April 29, 1999, 12 Kosovo Albanians were detained and tortured at KLA detention centres in the villages of Budakova/Budakovo and Semetishta/Semetiste.

"Detainees were hit all over their bodies. Detainees, including at least one LDK [Democratic League of Kosovo political party] supporter, were interrogated about and accused of associating, collaborating, or assisting Serbs and Serbian authorities," it claims.

It also says that at least three Serbs were detained in late June 1999 and July 1999 at a former boarding school and dormitory in the eastern town of Gjilan/Gnjilane and subjected them to severe beatings and psychological abuse.

However, former KLA members like Hoxhaj and his comrades are outraged by the indictment, and insist that the charges brought by the Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor's Office...

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