Fazli Veseli who died on Wednesday will be buried today in his birthplace in Broboniq of Mitrovica. His son, Kadri Veseli, who is at the detention centre in The Hague awaiting war crimes trial for his role as former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), most likely will not attend his father’s funeral.
Spokeswoman for the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, Angela Griep, told Gazeta Express that a panel of judges of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC) is to decide on this issue.
“Legal frame of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers allows detained persons to make such requests at the relevant Panel when there are compelling humanitarian grounds. The Panel will decide on such requests,” Griep said.
Family members of Veseli have stated that he told them to proced with the funeral without his presence.
Fazli Veseli’s health deteriorated in May when he was rushed to the Mitrovica hospital. In May 2021, the Kosovo Specialist Chambers granted Veseli a provisional release on compassionate grounds to visit his father in the hospital. Veseli was seen in Mitrovica hospital under tight security of the security forces and after the visit he was transferred again at the dentetion facilities in The Hague.
The indictment against Kadri Veseli and three other accused, Hashim Thaci, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi was confirmed on 26 October 2020 and made public on 5 November 2020. The indictment states that the crimes charged were committed from at least March 1998 through September 1999 and took place in several locations across Kosovo as well as in Kukës and Cahan, in Northern Albania. They were allegedly committed by members of the KLA against hundreds of civilians and persons not taking part in hostilities. The indictment alleges that Thaçi, Veseli, Selimi and Krasniqi are individually criminally responsible, pursuant to various forms of criminal responsibility for crimes, which were committed in the context of a non-international armed conflict in Kosovo and were part of a widespread and systematic attack against persons suspected of being opposed to the KLA. /GazetaExpress/