Albania on Monday arrested a former Kosovo rebel wanted by a Hague war crimes court for alleged intimidation and obstructing justice, the tribunal said.
Dritan Goxhaj was detained in Tirana where authorities will now decide whether to extradite him to the Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC) in the Netherlands, it said.
The EU-funded court is probing alleged crimes by ethnic Albanian rebels from the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the 1998-99 independence war with Serbia.
A KSC judge issued a warrant for Goxhaj for "offences against the administration of justice involving intimidation" and "obstructing official persons", the court said in a statement.
The prosecutor's office in Tirana confirmed the arrest and said Goxhaj was a citizen of Albania. Police also searched his home in Tirana at the request of the court, it said.
His lawyer said Goxhaj joined the KLA after the war broke out. Kosovo media said that before joining the rebels Goxhaj was an officer at an aviation school in Albania.
The high-security war crimes court operates under Kosovan law but is based in the Netherlands to shield witnesses from intimidation in Kosovo.
The court jailed two former KLA rebels, Hysni Gucati and Nasim Haradinaj, in 2022 for intimidating witnesses by revealing their names and branding them "traitors, spies and collaborators".
Former Kosovo president Hashim Thaci went on trial in April accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the conflict. Thaci has pleaded not guilty.
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