The special person responds to Kurt: We're making a maximum effort to bring war criminals to justice.

Giving details, this prosecutor has indicated that he is making maximum efforts towards uncovering and investigating war crimes and creating conditions for bringing war criminals to justice.

The following is the full reaction:

For the sake of fair and accurate information of the opinion, the Special Prosecutor of the Republic of Kosovo announces the opinion that at the end of 2018, some 900 war crimes files have been handed down by EULEX, as well as about 2,000 files on missing persons. The International Special Prosecutor's Mission's acquisition of competencies has opened numerous investigations and international letters to persons under investigation have been issued. Currently, in the phase of setting up the indictment, there are persons arrested and physically present in Kosovo, to whom regular criminal procedures are implemented.

The recent change to the Republic of Kosovo Criminal Procedure Code belongs to investigation and trial in the absence of persons who have committed war crimes. However, judgment in absence can be realised after the criteria stipulated by law have been met.

The first legal condition is that the person under investigation is wanted in states/states where it is supposed to be under the International Jury Co-operation principle at least five (5) times.

So in order to implement the first legal condition, it is necessary for the person under investigation to be sent an invitation, and for him five times through International Jurydic Co-operation. To send those invitations implied that, in advance, one's residential address under investigation, which is difficult to achieve in cases when the person looking for is in Serbia, because, as it is known, there is no international judicial co-operation between Kosovo and Serbia.

The second legal condition is to exploit every channel of International Police Co-operation and failure to ban the person under investigation.

The clear legal condition stipulates that after failing to achieve these objectives, the person in the investigation has been announced in search of criminal proceedings for at least six months in public information tools of the Republic of Kosovo, including the Official Journal of the Republic of Kosovo.

Of all of this it is clear that the judgment in the absence cannot be applied with an automatism, but it is necessary to meet the conditions which in practice can hardly be realised, in cases where the person required is found in Serbia.

Also, it should be noted that the Law on Changing the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Republic of Kosovo has come into force by decreeing the country's president on the 2106.2019, which means that in this six-month period in no way has it been possible to meet the legal conditions for trial in absentia.

Therefore, the Special Prosecutor of the Republic of Kosovo provides public opinion that this prosecutor is making maximum efforts towards uncovering and investigating war crimes and creating conditions for putting war criminals to justice. In realising this post, this prosecutor applies the laws of the Republic of Kosovo, as well as high standards of humanitarian and international law in the field of war crimes.