Journalist of Radio-Television of Vojvodina Ljubica Gojgić assesses in a show “Dan uživo” of regional TV N1 that from the political assessment will depend which names will be found on the first indictments of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, N1 reports.
Since the beginning of July, when the Rules of Procedure and Evidence have been adopted, the Special War Crimes Chamber of the KLA is ready to work. N1 reports that this court, established in the Kosovo Assembly, will prosecute the crimes of the Kosovo Liberation Army in the period from 1998 to 2000.
Ljubica Gojgić reminded that the president of that court, Ekaterina Trendafilova, said that everything was ready for the start of the work, and that there was no indication or announcements about when the first indictments could be raised. That moment and the names of potential indictees, she says, remain in the domain of speculation.
Who will be found in the first indictments, according to journalist Ljubica Gojgić, will depend on the political assessment. If the Special Court be contaminated by the politics as much as the Hague Tribunal was then it will face major problems, Gojgić believes.
She also recalls that the story about trial of crimes committed by the KLA has been running for 10-15 years, and that, according to the statements of journalists, Special Rapporteur of the Council of Europe, Dick Marty, Special Investigator Clint Williamson, but and representatives of UNMIK and EULEX, there are serious accusations at the expense of the leader of the KLA.
“They know that there were kidnappings after the withdrawal of the Serbian army and the police, that there were people being taken to the north of Albania and that there was a crime, organ removal,” Gojgić points out.
Dick Marty was not choosing the words when he talked about Thaçi
Gojgić also recalls that the name of the current Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi was the first to appear in connection with potential indictments, and that it was not a media speculation, but in Dick Marty report who, as she says, did not choose words when he spoke about the former KLA commander.
She says that Marty in his report has called Thaçi the mafia boss dealing with smuggling drugs, weapons and trafficking in human organs. She said Marty wrote that EU knows, that UNMIK knows, that NATO intelligence and at least three intelligence services of the EU have the same data, on how this mafia structure functions that emerged from what was once the KLA.
Ljubica Gojgić says that several years ago she was a participant in an informal meeting of journalists with Clint Williamson, who was just starting to work as a prosecutor, and that the question of what kind of cooperation he had with the then Prime Minister of Kosovo, Hashim Thaçi, said that the Prosecution had no contact with him because Thaçi is in the status of the suspect.
She reminds that Thaçi was not tried before the Hague Tribunal, unlike Ramush Haradinaj, who was acquitted in two cases due to lack of evidence and with the Prosecution’s complaints that it was impossible to work in Kosovo.
“And Clint Williams said that this would be a big problem. It is very difficult to access witnesses for security and fear. They should talk about the president of Kosovo, which is not pleasant,” Gojgić said.
The KLA was guerrilla, hard to prove command responsibility
Gojgić also points out that it is not easy to prove the command responsibility of the KLA leader, as it is a guerrilla that did not have the chief of the general staff, so the suspects must be linked directly to the crimes.
“Clint Williamson himself has warned of that. All what the prosecution has learned corresponds with the report of Dick Marty. After 1999, ethnic cleansing of the Serbs south of the Ibar was organized, there were dozens of cases of organ trafficking. He said it was hard to find evidence. Something we all know is not enough for the indictment and the verdict before a serious council,” Gojgić concluded.
Although crimes never become obsolete, the long period that was needed to constitute the Special Court for the KLA and the fact that crimes and organ trafficking in Kosovo have been reported since 1999, according to Gojgić, create a fear that time is being bought and that the expectation that justice is slow, but achievable, will not be met.
She also assesses that when political leaders in Pristina do not want to implement agreements from Brussels, they send signals to the international community that in Kosovo can be even less safe.
Although Thaçi will meet with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić on Thursday in Brussels, the question is what he can promise but even bigger question is what he can carry out from what he promised, Gojgić said.
“Of the 15 points of the Brussels Agreement, six referred to the Community of the Serbian Municipalities. It is far from forming, and it is very important for Serbs, and because it is very important, it is not there. It is the most painful part of the Brussels agreement that in Kosovo do not want to turn into reality,” Ljubica said for N1.
