Interpol “freed” Haradinaj, so he carelessly came to Skopje


Interpol withdrew an international arrest warrant against Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, which prompted him to enter our country smoothly. The former KLA leader, and prisoner at the Hague Tribunal will now only have a problem if he tried to cross Serbian territory because Belgrade continues to charge him with murders and serious crimes committed in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999.

It was the Serbian media that was making a fuss yesterday, announcing sensational headlines that the Macedonian authorities had removed Haradinaj from the refugee list and thus allowed him to attend the Digital Summit in Skopje, where, among other things, he was sitting on the same table with Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic. Kosovo newspapers were also adding to the fire, reporting that the withdrawal of the Interpol’s warrants was made overnight, given that the latest list was published only a week ago, according to which, Haradinaj was at the top of 20 KLA commanders.

“Macedonian authorities have removed Haradinaj from the list, just one day before arriving in Skopje,” Belgrade’s newspapers claimed.

However, according to our information, Ramush Haradinaj in December last year was deleted from the list of persons wanted on the basis of an international arrest warrant issued by Serbia. At that time, 18 Kosovo citizens were removed. With the decision, they can freely travel outside of Kosovo without any problems.
“We are informing you that currently there is no active international arrest warrant against Ramush Haradinaj, and he can make uninterrupted entry into the territory of the Republic of Macedonia,” they confirmed, in our Ministry of Interior.

Earlier, Haradinaj was regularly detained wherever he went outside Kosovo. The last time he was detained was last year in France, where he arrived by plane from Pristina.
“This procedure is completely unjust and unacceptable. We call on the French authorities and the entire European community to allow Haradinaj to move smoothly, bearing in mind that the warrants from Serbia are illegal,” his lawyers stated.

Soon afterwards, the French court rejected the evidence and requests from Belgrade for his extradition. Serbian authorities issued a warrant in 2004. He was indicted by the Hague Tribunal, but in 2008 he was acquitted.

He seriously put the relations between Macedonia and Kosovo on the test, on behalf of the government he led, promised tens of thousands of euros for families of Kosovo citizens who were sentenced for terrorist activities in the Kumanovo Divo Naselje in May 2015, when eight members of the police were killed. In the reaction, Foreign Minister Nikola Popovski assessed: “The decision of the government of the Republic of Kosovo to allocate budget funds for financial support to the families of convicted citizens of Kosovo is not in the spirit of building a European future for the region based on the rule of law that is common interest of both countries”. Skopje Criminal Court convicted a total of 16 Kosovo citizens, five of them got a life sentence, seven got 40 years in prison, while four were sentenced to 20 years in prison.

During his visit to Skopje, Haradinaj met with Prime Minister Zoran Zaev and participated in a joint dinner with the presidents of the regional governments and with European foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini. This is not the first official meeting between Zaev and Haradinaj. Four months ago, the Macedonian Prime Minister led the delegation, which was on a one-day official visit to Pristina.