Serbian court orders one month's detention for KLA veteran

2025-12-04 14:26:34, Kosova & Bota CNA

A court in Belgrade ordered a month's detention for a Kosovo citizen on Thursday, who was arrested late last month for alleged war crimes in 1999, Kosovo's Foreign Ministry announced.

Avni Qenaj, a veteran of the Kosovo Liberation Army, was arrested by Serbian police on November 25 at the border crossing between the two countries, Merdare, while he was traveling to Bosnia, where his family has a family business.

In a Facebook announcement on Thursday, the Ministry noted that judicial authorities in Serbia have initiated criminal proceedings against Qenaj for alleged war crimes in 1999.

She said that Qenaj's arrest "constitutes a continuation of Serbia's practices of political persecution of Kosovo citizens, through unfounded and politically motivated accusations."

The head of the Kosovo Liaison Office in Serbia, Jetish Jashari, visited Qenaj on Wednesday at the High Court for War Crimes Detention Center in the Serbian capital, the ministry said.

"Qenaj stated that during his stay in police custody, psychological pressure was exerted on him, but without physical abuse, and that he is currently not being mistreated by the detention authorities," the announcement states.

Qenaj has not been visited by family members, but expects their visit in the coming days, she said.

His family has hired four defense attorneys to represent him in this case.

On the day of his arrest, the Kosovo Liberation Army Veterans Organization said that Qenaj, from Romaja, Prizren, had served in the 138th “Agim Ramadani” brigade in Koshare.

The vice president of this organization, Gazmend Syla, told Radio Free Europe on the day of his arrest that Serbian authorities had found Qenaj's veteran's membership card.

Meanwhile, Serbia suspects that Qenaj, in April 1998, had joined the local KLA headquarters for the village of Romajë in Prizren and that as a member of the 138th “Agim Ramadani” brigade, he had participated in the attack on the Serbian border checkpoint in Koshare in 1999.

In recent years, several Kosovo citizens have been arrested in Serbia, whom Belgrade claims have committed war crimes.

In Koshare there was a military checkpoint of the Army of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) on the border between Albania and Kosovo, where from April 9, 1999, during the NATO bombing of the FRY, fighting took place for 67 days between the Yugoslav Army and the KLA.

The Serbian Ministry of Defense later announced that 108 members of the Yugoslav Army were killed in the Battle of Kosare.

Kosovo officials said 114 KLA members were killed. Yugoslav authorities said NATO bombed Kosare in May 1999.

The battle at this border checkpoint between the FRY and Albania ended on June 14, when the Yugoslav Army withdrew from Kosovo under the agreement that ended NATO bombing of the FRY.

NATO began attacks on military and police targets in the former Yugoslavia after the Recak massacre in March 1999.

Since the end of the war in Kosovo, April 9th ??is marked in Serbia as a heroic battle of the military forces of Yugoslavia, of which Kosovo was an autonomous part at the time, while in Kosovo it is celebrated as a victory of the KLA./ REL