Kosovo is still struggling to find out the real number of people who took up arms to fight against Serbian forces at the end of the 1990s – and the issue of who really fought and who didn’t has now become more controversial than ever.
The long, contested process of the verification of war veterans, which started after the approval of a law in 2011, became a topic of heated debate again last week when the Kosovo Special Prosecution indicted 12 members of the government’s verification commission amid claims that thousands who never fought in the war have been falsely registered as ex-guerrillas.
Among those charged was Agim Ceku, a former KLA commander, former prime minister of Kosovo and former Kosovo Security Force minister who was the head of the verification commission.
Verified veteran’s status makes ex-fighters eligible to claim benefits, and some observers believe that some non-combatants have sought to secure this status for financial gain.
Before the indictment was issued, special prosecutor Elez Blakaj drew up a list of 19,000 names of suspected fraudsters during his investigation into fake veterans.
Blakaj prepared an indictment that included the list of 19,000 names. But then he resigned from his job last month, claiming that he had been threatened by “known and unknown people” who wanted him to drop the probe.
He now insists that 2,000 additional names were added to the list after he quit.
Muhamet Lani, 69, found himself on the list of alleged fake veterans, but insists he was a member of the KLA’s logistics service in the guerrilla force’s Drenica Zone during the 1998-99 conflict.
However, Lani believes the problem of fake veterans is genuine, and argued that the inclusion of his name and other real veterans in the list was done “to discredit Elez Blakaj’s work”.
“I will hand over lots of documents to the court which can prove what Elez Blakaj included in his indictment. I am sure there are many more than 19,000 fake veterans,” Lani told BIRN.
The larger list of over 20,000 alleged fake veterans was published by Kosovo media last week after it was leaked from the prosecution.
Publication of the list caused anger among many ex-fighters, with one veterans’ association saying that it offended their “dignity and integrity as warriors”.
For more read the full of article at The Balkaninsight
