Basha recounts from Prekazi his entry into Kosovo in the first hours of liberation: His role was...

In the next podcast with Ermal Peçi and Marsid Gupi, Lulzim Basha traveled to Prekaz, from where he narrated his connections with Kosovo, the origin of his grandparents and his work at the Hague International Court and the UN Mission.

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the liberation of Kosovo, Basha has shown the first moments of the entrance from Hani i Elezit, together with the convoy of British troops as part of the team that had the mandate to investigate and bring Slobodan Milosevic to justice.

"The introduction of NATO shame began on June 12, that's why the 25th anniversary coincides with June 12, and everything was planned in a military manner. It was a caravan that entered from Han i Elezit, on the border between Kosovo and North Macedonia. In the motorcade of the first British troops, of the famous Nepalese Gurkhas, where the convoy of military vehicles, the colors of military camouflage, did not allow to see two white vehicles that were the vehicles of the UN, the investigative team of the Tribunal for the crimes of the war in Yugoslavia.
At that time, I was serving as the head of the operational office of the Tribunal in Tirana, with a mandate to investigate and bring Slobodan Milosevic to justice, i.e. the indictment against Milosevic, which had been delivered 3 weeks before the Kumanova agreement, and together with the British forces we entered Kosovo to advance with our work. In particular, in those first days, to see what opportunities would be presented to us for further documentation of the crimes and commanding responsibility of Milosevic and his associates.

We did not face any Serbian troops, but that evening when we arrived in Pristina, we realized that elements of the Serbian army, the Nish Corps, were still in Pristina. They were very close to the Grand Hotel, where we were stationed that night, and refused to leave because the team leader went, on the recommendation of American and British military liaisons, was treated with arrogance, and then returned with a platoon of British special forces, who had a clear ultimatum for the corps officers who had not yet left. "Within half an hour you either leave or you will be arrested for violating the Kumanovo agreement.
There I saw with my own eyes their panic, in about 20 minutes they got into their vehicles, left and left behind almost all the documents of the Serbian army headquarters. A good part of which, later, served with an extraordinary value for documenting the commanding responsibility of the generals and political authorities, of Milosevic, in the campaign of crimes and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.

For me personally, it was as exciting as it was fulfilling to see how the arrogance, the insolence, of those who for two years in a row, in a systematic way, had engaged in a campaign of mass murders, of civilians, children, the elderly, which was the very cause of the Liberation War and the protection from the KLA, without waiting they turned into the words of the team leader, into "wet chickens" and left never to return to Kosovo" - said Basha.