Lulzim Basha talks about the indictment against Milosevic and the stay in Kosovo: We worked 16 hours a day to build new institutions

In the next Podcast, Lulzim Basha has shown the work on the indictment against Slobodan Milosevic. He says that Bajram Kelmendi and his colleagues had started this work at the beginning, while the team that started from Tirana, where Basha was part of, had a clear mandate for the completion, confirmation and announcement of the indictment for war crimes. Basha also appreciates the determination of Chief Prosecutor Lusa Arbur, who did not succumb to influences, ignoring any kind of pressure and doubled the instructions to the team to complete the indictment against Milosevic an hour ago. "Work on the indictment started immediately with the bombing campaign. You said a little earlier that activists like Bajram Kelmendi and his colleagues had insisted and built the work base. But the team that went to Tirana had a clear mandate: the completion of the indictment and the confirmation and announcement of the indictment for war crimes against Slobodan Milosevic. Somewhere in early May, after a bombing campaign of more than a month, there were voices expecting earlier success in the bombing campaign, who pressed for an agreement with Milosevic, and this was also felt in the work of the tribunal. During the time we were finishing the indictment of Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes, we had influence from where are you, can it be postponed, wait. And here I remember the determination of the team leader who is also the drafter of the indictment, but also of the chief prosecutor Luisa Arbur, the Canadian magistrate who ignored any kind of pressure and as I said doubled her determination and instructions to the team to finish an hour earlier the indictment against Milosevic, which was announced, was confirmed and in fact the opposite happened from what was expected. It helped in my trial, the indictment was one of the factors that helped bring the murderous machine of Milosevic to its knees and the agreement of Kumanova on June 10", said Basha. Basha also spoke about his long stay in Kosovo, his duties in the military zone administered by the Americans and his work in building new institutions there. "I first worked in Mitrovica, the first 6 months, where the court was located in the north of the city. We had several cases with local Serbs for war crimes. We were all the time almost surrounded by protesters, but in fact they were people trained and paid by Belgrade, to protect these people who were under accusation, and who at this moment had also become the commanders of armed groups, and later makes some of the main figures of organized crime. Then I was in Pristina. Kosovo was divided into 5 military zones led by the respective American, German, British, Italian and French contingents. I served in the American zone, I was responsible for the proper functioning of justice institutions in the American zone and then,the last task I had was drafting the process of transfer of competences from UNMIK, from the UN, to the institutions of Kosovo. In fact, the establishment of the Ministry of Justice of Kosovo. For me it was an extremely valuable experience, it was challenging, but I believe I gave everything I could. They were long days, 16-hour days were called normal days, non-stop work, but with tangible results. Imagine, as Kosovo was burned, destroyed, when KFOR entered and took over the administration of the UN, it was also a burnt land from the institutional side. Within a short time, the institutions began to function", Basha underlined.