Around 4,000 people, mostly veterans of Kosovo's 1998-1999 war with Serbia, demanded Saturday the "immediate" release of ex-prime minister Ramush Haradinaj, who is being kept in France on suspicion of war crimes.
Haradinaj, a Kosovo Albanian wartime guerrilla commander, was arrested on January 4 under an international warrant issued by Serbia, which has asked for his extradition. Belgrade wants to try him for alleged atrocities committed against civilians during the war.
Haradinaj was released on bail by a French court pending a ruling on the extradition request and must remain in France.
"We hope that friendly France will not execute the (extradition) demand from Serbia. We demand the immediate release of Ramush Haradinaj," the head of the war veterans' association, Hysni Gucati. told the crowd that was chanting "Ramush!" in Pristina's main square.
Haradinaj's comrade-in-arms Abdyl Mushkolaj said former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) were "outraged and revolted by the detention of their general and "hero" by French authorities.
"Haradinaj personifies our war and today's Kosovo, so Kosovo cannot be kept in detention," he said, warning that "it is a provocation that could again ignite the region."
The KLA veterans' protest was supported by three main opposition parties, led by Haradinaj's Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK).
Haradinaj had already been arrested based on Serbian warrant in 2015 in Slovenia on alleged war crimes but was released a day later.
Haradinaj has twice before been acquitted of war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.
He was elected Kosovo's premier in 2004 but resigned after 100 days in power to surrender to the United Nations judges.
After the 1990s conflict in Kosovo, which killed 13,000 people, the predominantly ethnic Albanian province unilaterally declared independence in 2008 -- a move that has never been recognised by Serbia, which sees Kosovo as a Serbian province and the cradle of its identity and religion.
ih/ks /boc
Aarhus Karlshamn
