Kosovo agreed to support a new European-backed special court to try top war crimes suspects despite dissent from ex-guerrillas, while the EU rule-of-law mission was hit by corruption claims.
Under pressure from the European Union, Kosovo MPs voted in April 2014 to ratify a deal with Brussels to set up a new special court that will be located outside the country in order to prosecute serious crimes committed during and after the 1998-99 war with Serbian forces.
The idea of the new special court, which will be based in the Netherlands and have international judges, angered war veterans’ associations, which lobbied MPs not to vote for it, saying it was unfair to those who fought for Kosovo’s freedom from Serbian rule and that it was set up in the interests of the country’s enemies.
During a heated parliamentary debate, Prime Minister Hashim Thaci called it “the biggest injustice and insult which could be done to Kosovo and its people”. “Our war was just and in line with the international norms of war,” insisted Thaci, who was the political leader of the KLA during the conflict.
After parliament voted yes to the new court despite MPs’ reservations, war veterans took to the streets in protest. Analysts argued however that the court was necessary because Kosovo does not have the political will or courage to investigate suspects with powerful connections.
In July, an EU Special Investigative Task Force report made clear that top KLA officials would be prosecuted at the new court for crimes against humanity including murders and abductions, although it noted that there was not enough evidence yet for indictments for alleged organ-trafficking by Kosovo guerrillas.
The establishment of the court was delayed by the political stalemate that left Kosovo without a government for six months, but now an administration has been formed, it is expected to start work in 2015.
In a speech to the new parliament in December, President Atifete Jahjaga said the court should be set up soon as possible “as proof that we are a country built on the principle of justice for all”.
Addressing fears that it would damage the legacy of the Kosovo Liberation Army, she insisted that the new court would “never undermine our common battle and sacred fight for freedom and independence”.
Corruption claims at EU mission
In October, the EU was hit by more unwelcome allegations when one of its EULEX rule-of-law mission prosecutors accused one of the mission’s judges of corruption.
Prosecutor Maria Bamieh said that she discovered by reading telephone intercepts in a case that she was investigating that her colleague, Italian judge Francesco Florit, took a 300,000 euro bribe to free a defendant in a murder case and sought another in a corruption case against a Kosovo health ministry official.
Florit stringly denied the allegations, but the claims caused a scandal after Bamieh was suspended and went public with allegations that EULEX initially ignored her suspicions and instead targeted her for being a whistleblower.
“They are giving out the message that they are not serious about corruption, because if they were serious about it, they would be dealing with it in EULEX,” Bamieh told BIRN in an interview.
After some European lawmakers warned that the scandal could damage the image of the EU and its rule-of-law mission in Kosovo, Brussels’ foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini appointed an independent expert to probe the allegations.
“This review is consistent with my wish to apply a zero tolerance policy towards corruption,” Mogherini said. A report is expected in the early months of 2015.
The Drenica Group go into hiding
The high-profile war crimes case against the KLA’s so-called Drenica Group ran into controversy in May when three of the defendants, including Sami Lushtaku, the mayor of Skenderaj/Srbice, went into hiding at a Pristina clinic for several days in protest at an order to transfer them to a prison in the northern town of Mitrovica.
The defendants said it could be dangerous for them because two high-profile Serbs accused of violent crimes against Albanians were being held there. Their supporters then seized the clinic to prevent them from being recaptured before they eventually surrendered to police.
Media and civil society heavily criticised police and judicial institutions over the alleged incompetence with which they handled the situation.
The trial of the Drenica Group got back under way the following month and the seven defendants, who also include Pristina’s ambassador to Tirana and Kosovo’s former security forces commander, Sylejman Selimi, pleaded not guilty to abusing civilian prisoners held at the KLA’s Likovc/Likovac detention centre in 1998.
Former minister of transport Fatmir Limaj also returned to court in September after appeals judges reopened the war crimes case against the former guerrilla commander and nine other ex-fighters accused of abusing prisoners at the KLA’s wartime Klecka detention centre.
Limaj, who was known as ‘Commander Steel’ during the 1998-99 war, had been acquitted of the charges for a second time in September 2013. However only one hearing was held before the trio of judges was disqualified from the case.
A ‘Bridge Watcher’ in the spotlight
January saw the arrest of politician Oliver Ivanovic, a former Serbian government official and head of the Freedom, Democracy, Justice party.
Ivanovic, who was once a member of now-disbanded hardline Kosovo Serb group called the ‘Bridge Watchers’ because they used to guard the Serb side of the bridge that divides the town of Mitrovica, was accused of committing war crimes during unrest in April 1999, when 26 ethnic Albanians were killed.
The case against the politician sparked street protests by Kosovo Serbs and allegations by the Belgrade authorities that the charges were politically motivated. Ivanovic maintained that he was “totally innocent”.
