Paris: A former prime minister of Kosovo, Ramush Haradinaj, was arrested in France in response to an international arrest warrant for war crimes filed by Serbia.
Haradinaj—who has been twice tried and acquitted—is a former leader of paramilitaries who fought for Kosovo, a predominantly ethnic Albanian province of Serbia, to gain independence.
He was arrested on his arrival from the Kosovo capital Pristina at Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg airport, sources said.
The French judicial authorities will now examine the Serbian request, they said.
In Pristina, Kosovo’s justice minister Dhurata Hoxha, confirmed Haradinaj, 48, had been detained. “We will take every step to ensure that Haradinaj is released as soon as possible,” Hoxha said.
The 1998-99 Kosovo conflict was the last war of breakup of the former Yugoslavia.
It culminated in a Nato bombing campaign against Serbia and, in 2008, in Kosovo’s independence, which is still not recognised by Belgrade.
Haradinaj, a commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army during the war, became prime minister in 2004 but stepped down after over three months to face 37 charges of war crimes at International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. He was acquitted in 2008, and again in a partial retrial in 2012.
