Kosovo ex-president on trial for war crimes allowed to visit his sick mother

By ZENEL ZHINIPOTOKU and LLAZAR SEMINI
Associated Press

PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Former Kosovo president Hashim Thaci, who is on trial in The Hague on 10 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, is in Kosovo to visit his sick mother, the court says. The Kosovo Specialist Chambers on Monday said he was granted a custodial visit to Kosovo on “compelling humanitarian grounds.” Thaci has been in custody at The Hague, in the Netherlands, since November 2020. He is on trial alongside three other former senior leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army, or KLA, guerrilla force in Kosovo’s 1998-99 war for independence from Serbia. They are charged with offenses including murder, torture and persecution allegedly committed across Kosovo and northern Albania during and after the war.