In an opinion piece published in the paper today, Andrea Lorenzo Capussela, former head of the economics unit of the International Civilian Office in Kosovo, starts off with an explanation of how western officials transformed the originally-titled special court into specialist court after learning that the term “special” is part of dictatorial systems and was used as such by the Italian fascist regime. He then lists a number of, as he says, paradoxes revolving around the concept of the specialist court being established to try allegations contained in the Council of Europe (CoE) report. The first paradox, according to Capussela, is how discussions about the court are linked to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) war when in fact the CoE report covers allegations of crimes that occurred after the 1999 conflict and most of them fall under the category of organised crime as opposed to war crime. The second paradox, is that in an effort to convince Kosovo to accept establishment of the court, certain western diplomacies used the argument of the court being used to clean the image of Kosovo when courts’ work is only based on facts and not images. The biggest paradox however is that one of the main suspects in the report, the current Kosovo foreign minister, was also one of the staunchest proponents of the court while his political opponents were against the court’s establishment.
“Why is there a need for a ‘special’ court”? asks Capussela and identifies five answers with the first being that, in his view, UNMIK did not deal during its mandate with crimes alleged in CoE report. EULEX, on the other hand, was also either ‘incapable’ or ‘unwilling’ to address the claims whereas the Kosovo judiciary lacks capacity, integrity and impartiality required to try the cases. In addition, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) failed to attribute responsibility to any of the KLA leaders for the crimes committed during the 1998-99 conflict and the Tribunal in question is not only wrapping up its work but has also been discredited following recent politically-motivated releases of convicted people, writes Capussela. He also believes that it will be highly unlikely for the UN to establish a special court and argues that the best solution would be some type of arrangements whereby Kosovo courts would deal with these allegations and if it fails to do so in an impartial manner, Kosovo would lose major economic and political support from the west.
