French court delays extradition ruling on ex-Kosovo PM

By Onur Usta

PARIS (AA) - A decision on the possible extradition of Kosovo’s former prime minister was postponed by a French court on Thursday.

Ramush Haradinaj is wanted in Serbia to face war crimes charges stemming from his time as a Kosovo Liberation Army commander in the 1990s.

He was arrested at Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg Airport in eastern France on Jan. 4 and later freed pending court proceedings to send him to Serbia.

The decision on extraditing the 48-year-old, who currently leads the opposition Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, will be announced on April 6, the Court of Appeal in Colmar, northeast France, said in a statement. Haradinaj remains on bail.

He was Kosovo’s premier from December 2004 to March 2005, when he stood down to face war crimes charges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. He was twice acquitted.

In a statement, the Kosovo government said: “Serbia, which demands Haradinaj's extradition, abuses justice through vicious ways to harm the image of Kosovo and its people.”

Kosovo President Hashim Thaci described the case as “unacceptable and unjustifiable”.

“The Kosovo Liberation Army waged a war for the freedom and independence of Kosovo,” he said, quoted by the Euronews website.