Andin Hoti: ‘I Would Vote With Both Hands to Dismantle the Specialist Court’

Andin Hoti, the minister for Labor, Family and KLA Values, and the son of Ukshin Hoti, has declared he would vote “with both hands” to dismantle the Specialist Court, but stressed that such an initiative would also require the votes of the majority of Serb-community MPs.

“I am a minister now, but I have also been an MP. With the greatest desire I would vote with both hands to dismantle the Specialist Court, but we have a Constitution and we also need the vote of the Serb majority,” Hoti declared on Euronews Albania.

He expressed doubts that such a decision could be adopted in Parliament, even if it depended only on the will of the MPs.

“I don’t believe that, if it were in the MPs’ hands, this would be voted through,” Hoti said.

Andin Hoti is the minister for Labor, Family and KLA Values, and the son of Ukshin Hoti — one of the most important figures of the intellectual and political resistance in Kosovo, who disappeared after leaving Dubrava prison in 1999.

Hoti had a strong and emotional reaction after the Hague Special Court’s verdict, calling international justice unjust toward Albanians and declaring that it “rewards the aggressor and punishes the victim.” According to Hoti, the latest verdict and the way the war in Kosovo has been treated are proof that the Special Court was raised and functions as a political mechanism.

Hoti said that in the name of the people of Kosovo, those convicted by the Special Court are liberators and not criminals.

“I think that international justice in many cases has been unjust toward the Albanian people. In this concrete case, it rewards the aggressor and punishes the victim. And I believe that what happened today and what happened in the past is proof of what I have said before, that this court is a political court and was created politically.”

“In the name of the people of Kosovo these are liberators, they are not criminals. You cannot speak in the name of the people of Kosovo and at the same time condemn Kosovo’s liberators.”

“Where I am right now are the mortal remains of 23 missing and massacred persons, found two weeks ago in Zubin Potok. Here is also the laboratory where the DNA matching is being done.”

“All of Serbia to this day has been sentenced to 61 years in prison for the genocide in Kosovo, while our liberators have been sentenced to 81.”

“For me it was an emotional moment, because it reminded me of my father’s trial, 32 years ago, at the Prizren District Court, where he was sentenced by the Serbian authorities for his political activity for Kosovo’s freedom. And when you see today the faces of the sons of these four heroes and see their pain, it is very hard to hold back. This pain continues for decades and centuries.”

“Today in Kosovo there are still 1,560 missing persons being sought. Serbia refuses to communicate about their fate. Serbia makes Ratko Mladić a hero. While the European Union only issues a public statement, funds, gives a path to the European Union, while Kosovo’s liberators are convicted,” he said.