Enver Sekerraq scandalous release by EULEX judges

Oliver Ivanovic in January 2016 was sentenced to 9 years in prison for war crimes. Despite this condemned act of the Constitutional Court of Mitrovica against the Serbian politician was initially appointed home arrest measures by EULEX's court.

Just a week after this indictment, the Kosovo Court of Appeals turned Ivanovic into custody, arguing that the court of the Constitutional Court of Mitrovica, led by a EULEX judge, has wrongly appointed the measure of house arrest against convicts.

The appeal was called in the second paragraph of the Kosovo Criminal Procedure Code 367, specifying that the detention measure is binding whenever the defendant is sentenced to more than five years in prison.

“The Court of Appeals has concluded that the measure in question of home arrest was misappointed. According to the exact interpretation of Article 367, par. 2 of the KPP, the detention measure is mandatory whenever the defendant is sentenced to more than five years in prison. There is no disrepute this direction, so the Court of Appeals has changed the Constitutional Court's decision so that the measure of house arrest against defendants Oliver Ivanovic has replaced it with the measure of detention, until the indictment in question takes on a firm”, Apel had decided in its act on January 27, 2016, against Ivanovic.

Nearly two years after, the same court has issued a ruling that, as well as the one for the release of Ivanovci from custody, has prompted the reaction of law connoisseurs, but also politics and civil society.

The appeal Thursday has released the 37-year prison sentence, Enver Sekiraq, from custody for inciting the murder of police officer Triumf Riza in 2007.

The punishment for Sequirake, just like Ivanovic's spent over five years in prison. In the case of Sekiraqa, the Court of Appeals is the one breaking the law since January 2016, he said the Constitutional Court of Mitrovica violated it.

The violation was more precisely in the second paragraph of Article 367 of the Kosovo Criminal Procedure Code.

This confirms that if the court executes the sentence of over five years in prison against a defendant, then the person charged with automatism is sent to custody, even in cases where it was not previously charged.

“Whether the judge alone or the court pronounces five (5) sentences or more years of imprisonment to the accused unless he is found in custody or continues when the accused is in custody”, specified in Article 2's paragraph 367 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

The Court of Appeals has handed the decision on the release of Sequirake from custody prior to the release of a verdict filed by the defense of the convicts in this court, against the act of the Founding Act that sentenced the pediment to 37 years in prison, writes the newspaper Express.

Sequirake Kosovo lawyer Kelmendi confirms this. She indicated that they have still rejected Apel's decision in the Sekiraqa case, clarifying that the recent decision made by Appeals is only about the measure of security against convicts.

But this court has only indicated that this decision will be included in this court's final decision in the case of inciting police assassination of Triff Riza.

The decision was made after reviewing the three-judge professional college (two of EULEX and one local) of the Court of Appeals. Reasoning this decision to change the detention measure for the defendant from the house arrest measure will be included in the Supreme Court's decision of Apelit”.

On the other hand, Apel suggests that the reasons for Enver Seker's decision to release Sequirakes from custody will be presented in the written act.

“According to Article 369 of the Criminal Procedure Code, the court will be written within thirty days of warning. The chairman of the Judicial Body may ask the Court's president to extend the deadline for sixty (60) extra days, so that the court will be examined in complex cases of”, Apel explains.

E Ehat Miftaraj from the Kosovar Institute for Justice, as the connoisseur of judicial issues in the country, says changing the security measure against a profile indictee like Enver Sekiraqa should be clarified well in public.

It is scandalous that this decision is made public by the convicted lawyer, not by the court itself who has pronounced it.

We are dealing with a case of a dangerous person's profile who is accused of serious acts and who has left for a time of justice until he has surrendered voluntarily. A case of this profile, which continues to be charged with serious criminal acts, for which once the first-instance court has sentenced him to capital punishment of 37 years in effective prison, should be well clarified in public even about the decision to change the security mass”, he says.

“This court has a legal obligation that the decision regarding changing the security measure be published and informed and convince the public that such a measure is based on law”, Miftaraj declares by the IKD.