Democratic Party leader Sali Berisha delivered a speech at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, where he addressed developments in Kosovo and the convictions of former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) leaders in The Hague.
Berisha first focused on the repeated elections in Kosovo, saying they had been conducted in accordance with international principles for parliamentary elections. According to him, frequent elections resulting from the procedure for electing the President should be avoided. He called for assistance from the Council of Europe and the Venice Commission in finding a more workable method for electing the President of the Republic.
Referring to the convictions of former KLA leaders by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague, Berisha said they had sparked protests in Pristina. He argued that public anger was linked to comparisons with other cases and to what he described as a lack of clear evidence regarding specific crimes.
Berisha also criticized the way the proceedings in The Hague had been conducted, claiming that prosecutions had targeted only one side of the conflict.
“Most recently, the sentences handed down by the Kosovo court in The Hague have, surprisingly, followed clear ethnic lines. Contrary to its statute, the court has prosecuted only the victim’s side and not the aggressor. Therefore, let us hope that the Court of Appeals will review their cases more objectively,” Berisha said.
The Democratic Party leader also spoke about Ratko Mladić and Serbia, condemning the burial with state honors of the former Bosnian Serb military commander.
“The burial with state honors of the butcher of Bosnia, the orchestrator of the largest genocide in Europe since the Second World War in Srebrenica, amounted to a second execution, 31 years later, of 8,500 boys and men, solely because of their religious and ethnic identity,” Berisha said.
He described this as “a grave insult to all humanity” and linked the stance of Belgrade and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić to electoral developments in Serbia.
“This is a grave insult to all humanity, a stance by Belgrade and Mr. Aleksandar Vučić, who seeks to win the elections with the ghost of Mr. Ratko Mladić,” Berisha said.
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