In his first interview since appointed chief prosecutor of the new Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor’s Office, David Schwendiman, told BIRN that suspected criminals are the target of his work, not the Kosovo Liberation Army. “I am not after organisations, I am not after ethnicities, I am looking at individual responsibility for what was done,” David Schwendiman said. “If that message gets out clearly to the people that are affected by this, then maybe they will understand that the court is not pro-Albanian or anti-Albanian, pro-Serb or anti-Serb, but that we are just doing our job.” However, Schwendiman declined to identify who was under investigation, and said that one of the reasons for his visit to Belgrade and Pristina last week was to quell such rumours. “I wanted to raise the issue of speculation, assumptions and rumours and make sure that people understood that unless it comes from me, it is not something you should believe,” he underlined. “I wanted to stress my independence that the key thing about what I am doing is independent, that anything I am supposed to be doing will be based solely on my understanding of the facts as we collected them and as we will continue to do and the law as I read it. And the law, as you know, absorbs and integrates international standards that already exist, so I wanted people to understand that,” he said. Although many have questioned whether it is actually possible to prove the crimes committed by a guerrilla force like the KLA, due to the lack of written orders, Schwendiman expressed confidence, saying that the SITF’s chief investigator Clint Williamson left him a solid base of evidence to build upon. But Schwendiman is aware he will have to heavily rely on witnesses and their statements. “Protecting those who we estimate are vulnerable or who become vulnerable because of participation in this process is absolutely vital. I have the authority to do that, I got assurances of the assistance to help me do that, and I can’t and I won’t talk about specific teams or methods that we are now employing or will employ to get that done,” he explained. Schwendiman said he hoped his investigations would help the search for the remains of around 1,660 people still missing from the Kosovo conflict. “I know how to do it and I have done it and I am absolutely committed to do it as much as I can to locate, recover and get people back to their families,” he said.