President Atifete Jahjaga said she would ask the EU to set up a special court outside Kosovo to deal with war crimes committed in the 1990s, having secured all-party consent.
Edona Peci
BIRN
Jahjaga said she would ask Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, “to establish a Kosovo court located outside the country in order to address allegations [against former Kosovo Liberation Army fighters] raised in the Council of Europe report of 2010”.
In a press release issued on Friday, Jahjaga said: “The establishment of a special court reflects the engagement of Kosovo for an independent and unbiased process in dealing with these accusations in a credible manner.
“This court will be focused on individuals and individual acts and is not a judgment of the collective efforts of our people for liberty and freedom,” she added.
Her comments followed a joint meeting held with heads of political parties, which she said had reached agreement “on our achievements in the rule of law field and in the transfer of competencies to Kosovo institutions.
“We also discussed the importance for the extend of EULEX’s mandate until 2016,” Jahjaga said, referring to the EU rule-of-law mission whose mandate expires in June.
Although all main parties in Kosovo have now agreed to set up the new war crimes tribunal, some opposition leaders still said the decision was damaging.
Isa Mustafa, head of the opposition Democratic League of Kosovo, said the establishment of the tribunal was “a heavy burden for Kosovo.
“We do not consider that Kosovo deserves such a court,” he said, adding that parliament has to approve the establishment of the court in the coming weeks.
Albin Kurti, head of the nationalist Vetevendosje Movement, described the establishment of the tribunal as “a step back for Kosovo.
“Linking Kosovo to terms like crime and crimes against humanity will damage Kosovo’s reputation in the world,” he said.
The tribunal is designed to shed light on war crimes allegedly committed by former Kosovo Liberation Army members during 1998-1999.
It is still a unclear whether the tribunal will deal with organ trafficking allegations, but it is known that it will deal with the abduction and deportation of about 500 people, mostly Serbs, who went missing after conflict in Kosovo ended in July 1999.
An investigation into organ trafficking allegations contained in the report by the Council of Europe rapporteur Dick Marty report is still ongoing.
The report, published in 2010, alleged that former commanders of the Kosovo Liberation Army, from the so-called Drenica group – including the current Prime Minister, Hashim Thaci, and other Democratic Party of Kosovo MPs, including Shaip Muja, Azem Syla and Xhavit Haliti, ran organised criminal enterprises, including an ad-hoc network of detention facilities on the territory of Albania.
Haliti told BIRN that he was “ready to face justice.
“If the tribunal calls me, of course I will go,” he said.
“If the tribunal is established in line with European procedures, then it will help people who were mentioned in the [Marty] report,” he added.
However, he described the Marty accusations as “pure fabrications” and urged the need for more clarity concerning how the tribunal would deal with the allegations.
International campaign group Human Rights Watch has backed the establishment of the new tribunal, urging Kosovo’s parliament to support the initititive “to show that it takes the rule of law seriously and is committed to justice for serious abuses”.
“The proposal to establish a special court and extend the EU law mission is Kosovo’s chance to advance justice and individual accountability for very serious crimes,” Lotte Leicht, EU director at Human Rights Watch, said on Friday.
