"There is no prime minister in Europe, and probably around the world, who is accused of having committed war crimes. The Serbian government finds it entirely unacceptable that a man who should be tried for war crimes should be or can be elected to any political post," the head of the government's media office, Srdjan Djuric, told Radio B92.
He said the international community representatives for Kosovo had the obligation to protect the elementary norms and prevent Qeku's election from ridiculing the values of which a democratic society is based.
President Boris Tadic told the press Serbia did not choose the Kosovo prime minister but said that "former warriors" becoming political leaders was not a good thing. He voiced hope that the Kosovo institutions's decision, whatever it might be, "will not destabilise the entire region and endanger the Serb ethnic community in Kosovo".
Serbia and Montenegro Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic told the press the issue of whom Kosovo's competent bodies would elect prime minister "is exclusively within the jurisdiction of the people in Kosovo".
An indictment filed in Serbia charges Qeku, as commander of the former Kosovo Liberation Army, with the murder of 669 Serbs and 18 members of other national minorities, 518 cases of grave wounding, and 584 kidnappings.
In 2002 Serbian authorities issued an international arrest warrant for Qeku. He was arrested twice, in Ljubljana in 2003 and in Budapest in 2004, but was released after a brief detention on both occasions.