Kosovo Liberation Army

A group of over 40 civil society organisations in Kosovo said in a joint statement on Thursday that Shkelzen Gashi has been "threatened and insulted in the worst way by the general public, but also by many personalities and politicians including President Hashim Thaci".

Among those called in for interviews have been prominent political figures like Ramush Haradinaj, head of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, AAK party, who resigned as prime minister when he was summoned, and the former speaker of the Kosovo Assembly, Kadri Veseli, who is head of the Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK.

Remzi Shala's lawyer, Natal Bullakaj, told BIRN on Thursday that the Supreme Court has upheld the former guerrilla commander's appeal against his war crime conviction and sent the case for a retrial.

The retrial will be held at Prizren Basic Court, where Shala was originally sentenced in July last year to 14 years in prison.

The chief prosecutor at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Prosecutor's Office, Jack Smith, notified the president of the Specialist Chambers for the second time about that he intends to initiate proceedings before the Hague-based 'special court', it was announced on Tuesday.

Albin Kurti said on Saturday that he has dismissed Shkelzen Gashi, a history and politics expert, as his prime ministerial adviser amid an ongoing backlash about Gashi's comments about crimes committed by Kosovo Liberation Army fighters.

It was a snowy day in December 1998 and Besnik Rustemi's family was waiting for their village of Slivove/Slivovo to come under fire.

Rustemi, then six years old, was playing in his neighbours' yard with a friend. Meanwhile, his new rubber boots were waiting for him in his bedroom, ready to be worn whenever his family decided it was time to flee.

In this endeavour, Thaci is believed to have secured support US President Donald Trump's envoy for Serbia-Kosovo peace negotiations, Richard Grenell. A man of many titles - he is also the acting Director of National Intelligence and the US ambassador to Germany - Grenell has denied that the partition of Kosovo has been discussed in secret as part of the rumoured peace deal.

The Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Centre NGO said in a report published on Wednesday that Serbian war crimes prosecutors are continuing to issue only a small number of indictments, most of them in cases transferred from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and none of them charging high-ranking suspects.

Kosovo Security Force troops paraded at a commemoration in Pristina on Thursday to mark the anniversary of the death in 1998 of Kosovo Liberation Army commander Adem Jashari and honour the wartime actions of the guerrilla force.

Almost five years since Kosovo's parliament approved the establishment of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Prosecutor's Office, chief prosecutor Jack Smith has notified the president of the Specialist Chambers of his intention to initiate proceedings before the Hague-based 'special court', it was announced on Monday.