Number of charges rising on high profiles in Kosovo

The mechanisms responsible for fighting crime and corruption in Kosovo have recently increased the number of charges against high profile officials.

The responsible organs say that there are many cases of high profiles being investigated, but at this stage they refuse to provide information, as they say the process can be damaged.

Anti-Corruption Agency Director Shaip Havolli told Radio Free Europe that high-level corruption cases must end with deserved sentences.

The case of fighting corruption has recently been noted by many indictments and criminal charges laid down by the agency, but also charges filed by the prosecution. Those charges are largely high profiles. Thus, several high profile charges have been raised, but it is significant that these charges are not rejected but that there are condemned judgments”, Havol said.

During the past week, in local media it has been reported that the Special Prosecution has filed several charges against several senior officials, including ministers and ministers, regarding corrupt actions and similar subjects, have been handed over to the Constitutional Court.

The head of the Constitutional Court in Pristina, Aferdita Bytyqi, told Radio Free Europe that only one case of the high-level corruption indictment has been recorded last week in the Prosecutor's Office.

An indictment against Emin Beqiri [former director of economic crimes at the Kosovo Police] has been established and Hashim's beat. It's the case targeted by D/V, which we have as a priority to end these cases faster. The Special Prosecutor has filed this indictment and handed it over to the Pristina Foundation Court”, Bytyqi said.

On the other hand, the chief state prosecutor now has me with a special unit that functions as a supervisory commission to implement the 2016/2018 action plan for corruption and economic crimes.

The prosecutor, Laura Pula, who is part of this unit, said that recently it has increased the efficiency of work at the prosecutor and the court in terms of corruption-related materials.

The special focus “Rics are the targeted ones which are monitored by our commission, but also by the chief state prosecutor himself. We make a comparison between year-on-year and new classes. If we make a comparison of new subjects and how many have been resolved, we always have a percentage that over 100 percent have solutions to new subjects”, she said.

International representatives have called on the heads of institutions to take concrete steps in fighting corruption.

High levels of corruption and organised crime are highlighted in almost all international reports, as well as in researchers reports of local organisations, such as “one of Kosovo's biggest development problems.

The international organisation Transparency International in its latest corruption perception index in Kosovo has stressed that easy progress has been made in fighting corruption, compared to the previous year when it was 95th place with 36 points.

The non-governmental Kosovo Democratic Institute as an official member of the global anti-corruption movement, Transparency International, says that, from the inside, a large part of the charges involving cases of corruption filed by the prosecutor have been rejected by the courts.

Florent Spahija, a legal official in KDI, told Radio Free Europe that in the fight against corruption, there has still been no adequate job or political will to go to the end of cases of clean level suspected of corruption.

“On most cases of indictments have been raised for face-to-face. The greatest danger in such cases is that it becomes the same routine for people to be acquitted of such acts rather than blamed. We see the same people at different levels of corruption or other relatives that are not necessarily corrupt and are the same people who continue to govern or are powerful”, Spahija said.

Fighting corruption and concrete results in this direction are part of the European Union's conditions for visa liberalisation for Kosovo.

Fighting corruption, for the Government of Kosovo, no longer constitutes one of the unfulfilled conditions in the visa liberalisation process.

According to the government, institutions have noted concrete progress and results in this regard.