The murderer of a thousand Serbs arrived in The Hague, Albanians scared by the fate of their leader, it is written in black

Agim Ceku, Photo: EPA

For two decades, the dead and their families in Kosovo and Metohija have been awaiting the start of trials for war crimes committed by members of the KLA terrorist organization in the southern province of Serbia. Several processes are underway before the Special Court in The Hague and dozens of pending charges, which should be confirmed by the end of this year.

While the public awaits the outcome of the decision on the indictment against Hashim Thaci, suspected of the most monstrous crimes, several members of the KLA were questioned before this court, including Agim Ceku (60), former commander of the headquarters of this terrorist organization, who has the status of a suspect.

His questioning lasted about two hours, and prosecutors were particularly interested in the crimes in which civilians were killed. Lawyer Artan Ćerkini did not reveal the details of the hearing, only confirmed that Ceku was before prosecutors and investigators.

– Agim Ceku was questioned. We finish for today. He was questioned as a suspect. That is all I can tell you at this moment – Ćerkini said. Ceku confirmed in early September that he had received a subpoena from The Hague and then said that he would respond and cooperate with this court.

“I will answer all the questions you ask me,” said Ceku at the beginning of September.

Ceku has been arrested four times so far on a Serbian warrant for war crimes in Kosovo and Metohija, in Bulgaria, Slovenia and Hungary, while he was expelled from Colombia. Neither of these countries extradited him to Serbia, although he was on Interpol’s wanted list. His terrorist career began long before May 1999, when he officially joined the KLA. Namely, Agim Ceku, as an officer of the former JNA, went to serve in the Croatian army in the military actions “Storm” and “Medak Pocket”, for which he received up to nine decorations from Franjo Tudjman. An estimated 1,000 people were killed in Kosovo and Metohija and in Croatia.

In Kosovo and Metohija he returned in 1998, and a few months later, in May of the following year, he assumed the leadership of the KLA. He organized dozens of attacks against Serbian security forces and Serbian civilians. When UNMIK took over KIM, Ceku became the head of the Kosovo Protection Corps. Following the end of the conflict in the southern province of Serbia, Agim Ceku founded a political party and, from 2006 to 2008, he was also Prime Minister of the false state of Kosovo.

Suspected of killing 687 people in KIM

Agim Ceku, Photo: EPA

The Serbian judiciary suspects that Agim Ceku killed 669 Serbs and 18 other non-Albanians. During 1999 and early 2000, Hashim Thaci and Agim Ceku, along with other members of the KLA and other Albanian armed groups, carried out ethnic cleansing and terrorist attacks that killed and seriously injured hundreds of civilians, including children. women and the elderly.

Got rich after the crime

Since the declaration of independence, Agim Ceku began to get rich quickly and gained much of his wealth through criminal activities. His brother Edhem Ceku is considered a key smuggler of weapons, drugs and special products in Peja, but also in the wider area. Agim is known to be behind the Pristina company “Sloga”, which owns two large hotels where prostitution and gambling are organized. He owns several houses and buildings, as well as more than 60 commercial premises in KIM. He is on friendly terms with Ramušem Haradinajem.

He also killed in Croatia

At the beginning of the war in the former Yugoslavia, Agim Ceku defected from the JNA and joined the Croatian army. He was the commander of the unit that committed several murders and kidnappings of Serbs in Gospić in the same year. His unit is responsible for the liquidation and disappearance of some 170 Serbs. Due to his participation in the “Medak Pocket”, an action in which 88 Serbs were killed, including 17 women, and several villages were burned, he received the rank of general from Tudjman. After the “Storm”, Tudjman decorated Agim once more.