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Riot police used tear gas and a water cannon on protesters outside Kosovo’s parliament on Monday night, after lawmakers ended their session without passing a bill to limit the powers of the country’s war crimes court.
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Several hundred demonstrators had spent most of the day outside the building, vowing to blockade it until the law was approved. When the session closed in the evening, they moved towards police lines to try to stop lawmakers from leaving.
Tear gas was aimed at the crowd, while some protesters threw firecrackers at officers. Bins were set alight near the parliament and projectiles were hurled at police, who responded with a water cannon and armoured vehicles.
During the hours-long stand-off, demonstrators denounced the sentencing last month of former president Hashim Thaci for war crimes committed during the 1990s war of independence against Serbia.
Thaci and three other senior guerrilla figures received heavy sentences after being found criminally responsible for murders, illegal arrests, torture and cruel treatment carried out by Kosovo Liberation Army fighters.
The verdict prompted outrage and rallies in the Balkan country, where the four men are widely seen as heroes of the independence struggle.
The bill cleared its first reading on Monday but was not passed into law. It would strip the Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC) of the power to try war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the war between ethnic Albanian guerrillas and Serb armed forces. Its jurisdiction would instead be limited to crimes committed inside Kosovo in the immediate aftermath of the war.
The KSC is established under Kosovo law but based in The Hague. Opposition parties and war veterans’ organisations have long criticised it.
Additional sources • AFP
