Only 65 people sentenced for war crimes in Kosovo

The Hague Tribunal after the end of the war began work on investigating and judging crimes. U n The NMIC then dealt with these materials, to continue later from EULEX until it took over local competencies.

While a special department was established in Serbia in 2008 under the Supreme Court for the trial of these crimes. Amer Alija, legal analyst and monitor of war crimes trials, in an interview for Online Economy, said 65 people who have been charged with war crimes in Kosovo have been sentenced to 558 years in prison.

“Since the end of the war, these court processes have begun to be tried by The Hague Tribunal, and in parallel with that have been tried by local prosecutors and judges, but immediately in 2000, these competencies have passed on to the international mission, U n NMIK, started in 2009 EULEX, and finally these EULEX competencies, have been interrupted, in recent times, the local judiciary has these competencies by investigating and judging war crimes, these cases have also been tried by local courts in Serbia, beginning to be tried by district courts of several cities, then in 2008 a department under the Supreme Court, which deals with the trial of war crimes”.

“over 1998-2000, according to fund data, about 13 thousand and 500 victims have been killed and eliminated, for these 13 thousand and 500 victims totaling acts in Kosovo in Serbia, The Hague, and wherever they are dealing with the trial of war crimes, a total of 65 people have been convicted, we have some judgments on political and military superiors in The Hague, while local courts have sentenced persons with lower responsibility. 65 total people have been sentenced to 558 years in prison, at this moment near the courts of Kosovo, are being tried by 3 Albanians and 3 Serbs, and we also have 6 people arrested, where the procedure against them is still under investigation, they are 3 Serb, 1 Bosnian and 1 Albanian”, Alija said.

Alija said the challenge remains Serbia and Kosovo's non-co-operation with the exchange of information concerning the perpetrators.

“These judgments have not shown any major results in condemning war crimes perpetrators, because there are some challenges that confront these processes, like the main challenge is that of not co-operating between Kosovo and Serbia, international judicial co-operation for war crimes, in some cases not related to war crimes, Kosovo and Serbia exchange information, but in war crimes cases, they have no co-operation, and that is the biggest obstacle why there are no major results, since after the signing of the Kumanovo agreement, Serbian forces have been withdrawn from Kosovo territory and Serbia does not even exchange information and 406.

Alija says the lack of prosecutors, but also support staff, especially in the Special Prosecution, remains another challenge affecting the collection of war crimes evidence. He adds that even lack of data is preventing the investigation and investigation processes for these crimes. “The next challenge, the witness's security, as in all these cases, among the main evidence is the memory of the witness and his testimony, over 20 years, witnesses die and there is a possibility that a very large number of leaders will not be punished, and the large number of crimes never prosecuted near the judicial organs, immediate challenges to the Department of Serious Crimes in Special Prosecutors, according to us is the small number of prosecutors, these prosecutors do not have enough support staff who worked earlier and have great knowledge of war crimes, I think they need training, more than 44x>

“Special Department in Pristina, they don't have enough, under the special prosecution we don't possess data for all war crimes that have occurred in Kosovo, special prosecution has an obstacle to a database where if there was this base then it would be easier to investigate and investigate crimes”.

According to lawyer Tome Gashi, more former KLA soldiers have been sentenced for war crimes than Serbs. Gashi further adds that the absence of Kosovo prosecutors to investigate these crimes is a degrading but even insulting behaviour for all victims of war and their families.

There has always been no political will to identify and reveal those who have committed war crimes in Kosovo, Serbian forces, soldiers for the Serbian Army and others that have been involved, and we have about 15 thousand Albanians killed during 1998-1999, and we have a small number of those who have been indicted and tried, to be the biggest irony, we have so far tried their former KLA majority for war crimes cases, and we have no case of condemnation of Serbs and police officers, and Serb soldiers who have committed a single massacre in Kosovo. “ ... has been a total neglect even of Kosovo institutions, which have not been taken for 20 years with this most painful issue since they have lacked political will, but we already have only three prosecutors dealing with cases of war crimes and I believe that this is insufficient and a degrading and offensive behaviour against war victims so that 3 persons deal with this matter”, Gashi said.

While according to State Chief Prosecutor Alexander Lumez, the State Prosecutor is working on the prosecution and investigation of those who committed crimes. According to Lumez, to track these people, the Kosovo Prosecutor needs the help of other states as well.

“We have the war crimes department that functions under the Special Prosecutor and there are three prosecutors, they work with materials every day, they make decisions about the launch of investigations, they make different requests of the Kosovo Police for the collection of information that is needed for the launch of criminal procedure, and they freeze accusations”.

The changes to the Code of Criminal Procedure, including judgment in absence, he is convinced that there will be results in this. “... we are co-operating with other states for finding information and gathering necessary information for these cases, but you know that a large number of perpetrators of criminal acts or war crimes perpetrators are not found on Kosovo territory, they are out of Kosovo territory, we have issued international warrants for several persons, we have heard of some who are located outside Kosovo's territory and are sentenced by The Hague <x1. “... so we're working to identify the perpetrators of criminal acts as well as the magistrates and the conduct of these criminal acts and we hope that even with the change of the Penal Procedure Code, where the right to accuse people even in absence, we will have concrete results in this direction”, Lumez said.

War crimes in Kosovo will also be tried by a court formed by Kosovars in The Hague, known as the Special Court. The special will try the alleged crimes of former KLA soldiers during the war. Religions for interview by this court have been added in recent days, and the head of the Assembly, once again and for PDK, Kadri Wessel.