Former Kosovo Resistance Commander Released

23/10/2003| IslamWeb

Slovene authorities on Thursday released a former Kosovo resistance leader arrested on an international warrant issued by Serbia-Montenegro for war crimes. Lt. Gen. Agim Ceku, the head of the Kosovo Protection Corps, a civilian emergency organization created after the disbanding of the resistance Kosovo Liberation Army, was arrested by Slovene police on Wednesday at Ljubljana airport as he was returning to Kosovo. He was released early Thursday after Slovene authorities determined that Belgrade's warrant for Ceku's arrest was "invalid," his lawyer, Miha Kozinc, told The Associated Press. "The investigative judge ruled that the U.N. has jurisdiction over Kosovo and that Belgrade does not have the legal power to issue arrest warrants for the province," Kozinc said. Ceku, who was held for 12 hours, was released immediately after the ruling at about 1 a.m. Thursday. Kosovo's U.N. administrator, Harri Holkeri, asked that Ceku be released immediately in a letter sent late Wednesday to Slovenia's foreign minister, Dimitrij Rupel. "Since this is a matter within my jurisdiction, the arrest warrant issued by the Serbian authorities is invalid," Holkeri said, alluding to the United Nation's authority over judicial affairs in the province. In a letter, a copy of which was made available to AP, Holkeri requested "that the arrest warrant be quashed and that Ceku be immediately released." The United Nations has run Kosovo since mid-1999, when NATO bombing forced out Serb-led troops of Yugoslavia - Serbia-Montenegro's predecessor - and ended their crackdown on Kosovo's independence-minded ethnic Albanian majority. In 1999, Ceku headed the Kosovo Liberation Army, a resistance group that battled Serb forces in the province's war. The corps he heads now numbers around 3,000 and consists mainly of former rebel fighters. Last year, Serbia's authorities requested that U.N. authorities arrest three senior ethnic Albanian rebel leaders, including Ceku, to face trial for atrocities allegedly committed during Kosovo's 1998-99 war. Last December, Serbian Justice Minister Vladan Batic accused chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte of failing to indict Ceku and two other rebel leaders with war crimes. Earlier this year, another former Kosovo resistance commander, Fatmir Limaj, was arrested in Slovenia and extradited to the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, which indicted him for atrocities committed in Kosovo. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Wartime Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) chief of staff General Agim Ceku speaks during an interview with Reuters in Pristina in this September 11, 1999 file photo. (Hazir Reka/Reuters)