Berisha in Strasbourg: the Appeal should objectively review the sentences of the former KLA leaders

Democratic Party leader Sali Berisha delivered a speech at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, where he spoke about developments in Kosovo and the sentences handed down in The Hague to former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army.

Berisha first addressed the repeated elections in Kosovo, declaring they were conducted in line with international principles for parliamentary elections. According to him, the frequency of elections due to the presidential election procedure should be avoided, and he sought the assistance of the Council of Europe and the Venice Commission in finding a more workable way to elect the President of the Republic.

Referring to the sentences given to former KLA leaders by the Specialist Chambers in The Hague, Berisha said they had sparked protests in Pristina, stressing that public anger is linked, in his view, to comparisons with other cases and to the lack of clear evidence of concrete crimes.

Berisha also criticized the way, according to him, the judicial processes in The Hague were conducted, claiming the prosecution had touched only one side of the conflict.

“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 Appeals Court will review their cases more objectively,” Berisha declared.

The DP leader also spoke about Ratko Mladić and Serbia, condemning the state-honors burial of the former Bosnian Serb commander.

“The state-honors burial of the butcher of Bosnia, the orchestrator of the biggest genocide in Europe since World War II in Srebrenica, was a second execution, 31 years later, of 8,500 boys and men, solely because of their religious and ethnic affiliation,” Berisha said.

He described this as “a grave insult to all of humanity” and linked Belgrade’s stance, and that of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, to electoral developments in Serbia.

“This is a grave insult to all of humanity, a stance of Belgrade and of Mr. Aleksandar Vučić, who seeks to win the elections with the ghost of Mr. Ratko Mladić,” Berisha said.