Ex-Kosovo rebel army chief summoned as a war crimes suspect

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Kosovo’s rebel army commander during the 1998-1999 war with Serbia said Thursday he has been summoned by prosecutors of the international court looking into suspicions of war crimes.

Agim Ceku, 59, a former prime minister, told the media he was summoned “as a suspect” by The Hague-based Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor’s Office, which he will attend on Sept. 28.

The court, which has international staff working under Kosovo’s law, is mandated to look into allegations that members of the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army, or KLA, committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during and after the war.

Following a military career in Croatia, including fighting in the early 1990s when it separated from Yugoslavia into an independent state, Ceku became KLA chief-of-staff during the war and led the postwar transformation of the KLA troops into regular army forces. Ceku was prime minister in 2006-2008.

Ceku is the latest in a series of top Kosovar politicians and former independence fighters summoned by the court, which has interviewed hundreds of ethnic Albanians.

Kosovar President Hashim Thaci, former parliamentary speaker Kadri Veseli and some others have been charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, enforced disappearances, persecution and torture. A pretrial judge hasn’t yet made a decision on whether to proceed with the case.

The war ended after NATO conducted a 78-day airstrike campaign against Serbia, and Kosovo was run by the United Nations for nine years before it declared independence from Serbia in 2008. That independence is recognized by most western states, but not Serbia. Relations between the two countries remain tense.