Kadri Veseli

Former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci and his three co-defendants went on trial at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers on Monday morning, charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed between at least March 1998 and September 1999 in Kosovo and neighbouring Albania during and just after the war with Serbian forces.

"President Thaci and these gentlemen were freedom fighters trying to liberate Kosovo from a terrible situation that they were suffering for decades from the Serb regime and during the course of this trial we are going to demonstrate that," Kehoe said.

Sejdi Zymeri's house in the village of Likovc/Likovac is close to where the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA used to have its headquarters in the Drenica region, the guerrillas' wartime heartland.

On trial alongside Thaci will be Kadri Veseli, a former Kosovo parliamentary speaker and leader of Kosovo Democratic Party, PDK, Jakup Krasniqi, the chairman of the national council of the Social Democratic Initiative, NISMA party, and Rexhep Selimi, who was the head of the Vetevendosje party's parliamentary group of MPs at the time of his arrest.

The prosecution's presentation of evidence in the case against former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci and three other former senior Kosovo Liberation Army, KA guerrillas at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague could go on for six-and-a-half years, presiding judge Charles Smith III told a case status conference at the court on Monday.

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague has published a less redacted version of the indictment of former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci, who goes on trial with three other Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA ex-officers next month, giving more details of the war crimes and crimes against humanity charges against them.

During a joint meeting on Monday in Pristina between the governments of Kosovo and Albania, Prime Minister Edi Rama said that he will personally submit a report to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg being prepared in Albania's parliament querying the Dick Marty report and what he alleged was its Russian influence.

The pre-trial judge at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, Nicolas Guillou, decided on Thursday that Hashim Thaci and Kadri Veseli should remain in detention ahead of their trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed during the 1998-99 conflict in Kosovo.

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.

Pre-trial judge Nicolas Guillou has dismissed an attempt by former Kosovo president and wartime Kosovo Liberation Army political leader Hashim Thaci and two of his co-defendants, Kadri Veseli and Rexhep Selimi, to have the charges against them thrown out.