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Hague Prosecutors File New Kosovo War Crimes Indictments | Balkan Insight Marija Ristic VIEW ALL POSTS 3-4 minutes _____ Kosovo war veterans protest against the establishment of the Specialist Chambers in Pristina in 2015. Photo: EPA/VALDRIN XHEMAJ. The chief prosecutor at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Prosecutor’s Office, Jack Smith, notified the president of the Specialist Chambers for the second time about that he intends to initiate proceedings before the Hague-based ‘special court’, it was announced on Tuesday. “The President has therefore assigned a Pre-Trial Judge in accordance with the Law and the Rules of Assignment to review the new indictment filed by the Specialist Prosecutor. The content of indictments are confidential, unless and until confirmed by the Pre-Trial Judge,” the Kosovo Specialist Chambers said in a press release The pre-trial judge has six months to confirm, reject or request additional information related to the indictments. This is the second time that prosecutor Smith requested appointment of the pre-trial judge to review indictments. The first time indictments were filed in February and they are expected to be confirmed by mid-summer. The indictees have not yet been publicly named. Over the past year, more than 100 people, mostly former Kosovo Liberation Army members, have been summoned by the Specialist Prosecution for questioning as suspects or witnesses in relation to crimes allegedly committed between January 1, 1998 and December 31, 1999 in Kosovo. Those questioned included former KLA guerrillas who have become high-profile politicians like Ramush Haradinaj, who resigned as Kosovo’s prime minister after being summoned. The Specialist Chambers will hear cases arising from an EU task force report which said that unnamed Kosovo Liberation Army officials could face indictments for a “campaign of persecution” against Serbs, Roma and Kosovo Albanians. The alleged crimes include killings, abductions, illegal detentions and sexual violence. The report was commissioned after the Council of Europe published an inquiry in 2011 which alleged that some senior Kosovo officials, including current President Hashim Thaci, were responsible for various human rights abuses. Thaci strongly denied the allegations. International judges and prosecutors staff the new court, although it operates under Kosovo’s laws. The negotiations to establish the court lasted from 2011 until 2015. Since the Kosovo war ended, the international community has been administrating justice in Kosovo, but its results have been poor – fewer than 20 final verdicts in war crimes cases. However it was believed that the Kosovo prosecution couldn’t handle sensitive cases against senior officials, which was one of the reasons why the international community decided to establish the new court. Kosovo MPs voted to set the court up as part of the country’s justice system under pressure from the US and EU. In Kosovo itself, the court is seen as biased as it will try former KLA fighters – people perceived as liberators by the majority of the country’s ethnic Albanian population – while in Serbia, the court has wide support due to hopes that it will prosecute crimes against Serbs. https://balkaninsight.com/2020/04/28/hague-prosecutors-file-new-kosovo-war-crimes-indictments/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "SERBIAN NEWS NETWORK" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/senet/067301d61eec%2462827400%2427875c00%24%40gmail.com.
