Kosovo's war crime-charged ex-president briefly released to visit his ill father

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PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Hashim Thaci, the former president of Kosovo who is facing war crime charges, was briefly released from a European Union-backed court on Thursday to visit his ill father.

Thaci was seen visiting his father for about three hours at the public hospital in Kosovo’s capital Pristina accompanied by close family members, local media reported.

Scores of cheering supporters who were waiting outside the hospital building were kept at bay by police officers of the European Union Rule of Law Mission, known as EULEX.

Thaci and other senior leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army, or KLA, which waged Kosovo’s 1998-99 war for independence from Serbia, have been in custody at the court of The Hague, Netherlands, since November 2020 where they face charges including murder, torture and persecution during and after the war.

The court in The Hague and a linked prosecutor’s office were created after a 2011 report by the Council of Europe, a human rights body, that included allegations that KLA fighters trafficked human organs taken from prisoners and killed Serbs and fellow ethnic Albanians. The organ harvesting allegations have not been included in indictments issued by the court.

Some 11,400 people who died in the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo were ethnic Albanians. A 78-day NATO air campaign against Serbian troops ended the fighting, but tensions between Kosovo and Serbia remain tense.

Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, a move Belgrade and its key allies Russia and China refuse to recognize.

A European Union-facilitated dialogue on normalization of their ties, which started in 2011, has given scarce results.