BELGRADE – The Serbian Office of the Prosecutor for War Crimes has welcomed the information by Tanjug that came from Brussels, which says that those from the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) indicted for the crimes listed in the report by Dick Marty will be tried in The Hague, and not in Pristina.
“The creation of a tribunal for KLA crimes will be a great encouragement for the victims and their families,” Deputy Prosecutor for War Crimes Bruno Vekaric told Tanjug.
According to Vekaric, the great efforts put in by the special investigation team will have an outcome in court because of this, which is important for reaching justice, but also for reconciliation in the region.
Tanjug learned in Brussels earlier that the EU member had decided, after months-long consultations behind closed doors, to hold the trials against all those indicted by head of the special investigations team Clint Williamson in The Hague.
Williamson’s team has been investigating the claims from Marty’s report for almost four years. The report describes war crimes committed by members of the former KLA against Serbs, Roma and disloyal Albanians after the withdrawal of the Serbian military and police from Kosovo in 1999.
The report contains claims of organ harvesting from kidnapped civilians at the so called yellow house in central Albania and their subsequent sale on the illegal market, which is what drew the most attention to the document.
There has been no information yet about when the investigation will be completed or how many people will be indicted, since there is no formal deadline for the completion of the inquiry.
Brussels expects the indictments to be announced by June, on the 4th anniversary of the creation of Williamson’s team.
EULEX’s mandate in Kosovo, which covers the special investigation team as well, ends in June, and Kosovo is expected to call a parliamentary election then.
The Associated Press covered this topic in detail on Friday, stating that the EU was planning to establish an international tribunal that would focus solely on the crimes committed by the Kosovo ethnic Albanian rebels during the war with Serbia.
