TIME Magazine Ranks Kosovo PM Haradinaj Among ‘5 Most Wanted Geopolitical Fugitives of 2018’

The Time Magazine has ranked Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj among the five most wanted “geopolitical fugitives of 2018”, Gazeta Express reported. Kosovo PM is in the same list with other world well-known fugitives, including Catalan regional president Carles Puigdemont, Turkish Fethullah Gulen, founder of WikiLeaks Julian Assange and former Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili. The Time Magazine writes that in a time of heightened geopolitical drama, these characters have captivated the world’s attention, and their specific stories tell us about the state of the globe in 2018.

According to the Time Kosovo’s Prime Minister made his name in the late 1990s during the conflict there. A commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army, he was accused of presiding over the torture and murder of Serbs, but given a lack of evidence, he was cleared of war crimes by the UN in both 2008 and 2012. That wasn’t good enough for Serbia, which refuses to recognize Kosovo as an independent nation, and wants Haradinaj to be extradited to face justice in its courts.

It’s not only in Serbia that Haradinaj faces legal challenges. At the behest of Western allies and helped by EU funding, Kosovo’s parliament in 2015 agreed to set up a special war crimes court based in the Netherlands but operating under Kosovo’s jurisdiction, a move widely considered instrumental in helping stabilize Balkan geopolitics. Only now that indictments are set to come down, Haradinaj and other members of Kosovo’s political elite are looking for ways to derail the inquiries.

The U.S. and EU—who led the NATO bombing campaign against Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic in the war—are both livid at Kosovo’s perceived flaunting of Western norms and values. Maybe Haradinaj and his allies figure Kosovo is too small for important geopolitical powers to care; the reality is that, to preserve the peace, they can’t afford not to.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!