Kadri Veseli

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.

But Veseli's proposal was described as political opportunism by opponents within Kosovo, and dismissed by international experts as impractical and extremely unlikely to succeed.

Abelard Tahiri, the head of Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK's parliamentary group, called on Thursday for the dismissal of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Donika Gervalla because she said in 2016 that she was willing to provide evidence material to the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague.

The prosecution at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague has asked the pre-trial judge to dismiss the defence's motions challenging the indictment of former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci and three other former Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas turned politicians, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi.

The Atlantic Association, an organisation representing Albanian-Americans who describe themselves as "proud former KLA [Kosovo Liberation Army] soldiers", sent a letter to US President Joe Biden on Wednesday urging him to intervene to shift the Hague-based Kosovo Specialist Chambers war crimes court to Kosovo itself.

The Belgian authorities on Tuesday detained Pjeter Shala, a former Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA member after the Kosovo Specialist Chambers called for his arrest on war crimes charges.

"Pjeter Shala will be detained in Belgium, pending any transfer to the detention facility of the KSC [Kosovo Specialist Chambers] in The Hague," said a statement issued by Specialist Chambers.