Still no charge of deportation of six Turkish citizens

Tens of violations recorded by the Parliamentary Investigative Commission for acts of security institutions during the expulsion of six Turkish citizens have not yet sufficed to establish any charges by the Kosovo Special Prosecutor.

It has been nearly a year since the Kosovo Police had arrested and deported six Turkish citizens to Turkey, five of them employees at the school “Mehmet Akif”, and a doctor, but there is still no person charged with the event that sparked reactions and international ones.

Kosovo's Special Prosecutor says the investigations were launched even before the Parliamentary Investigative Commission handed over the findings related to the violations that were committed during the expulsion of these persons from Kosovo.

Prosecutor Sylla Hoxha, who is at the same time the spokesman for this institution, told Radio Free Europe, that the report worked by Kosovo Parliament MPs will be part of the subject.

They delivered him, we accepted him into the DA. That report is an integral part of the subject paperwork, but we have started earlier at the collection of” evidence, Hoxha said.

Following the incident that took place on March 29th 2018, Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj had stepped down from office Driton Gashi, then Kosovo Intelligence Agency chief and Interior Minister Flamur Sefaj, who later resigned from their positions, but according to the Prosecutor, is still early to talk about whether one of the top state officials is being investigated for the case.

The test will take us there. We have not yet arrived there, now to see”, prosecutor Hoxha said.

Members of civil society do not expect any of the State officials involved in the case to be part of the indictment that you could set up by the prosecution.

Arton Demhay from the COHU organisation told Radio Free Europe, that there could hardly be any epilogue, as he said, satisfactory for this process.

If, based on the Investigative Commission report, any very flagrant offenses or identifications, perhaps there may be some commitment on the prosecution's part, even more than that, it can be enough to clear any figure that not to accuse someone”, Demhay said.

He criticises the prosecution for the delay and for neglecting this process. According to Demhasey, the Kosovo Special Prosecutor, it has had to have the indictment ready, rather than waiting for the report of the Parliamentary Investigative Commission to begin investigations.

The “Taking into account that so far as this has been delayed as a process, it is hard to expect there will be any indictment on the prosecution's side, even for the very fact that the prosecution has so far taken no measures or has begun to conduct any investigation into the matter”, Demhasyan said.

After identifying 31 violations and drafting the expert's report, members of the Parliamentary Investigative Commission have claimed to have begun various pressures in the work of this commission. For this greater pressure and commitment of the prosecution bodies to whitewash the truth about the case, the American Embassy in Pristina, which was also followed by reactions from the United Kingdom and German embassies.

Through a statement to the media, this embassy said “has spent a year since Kosovo expelled six Turkish citizens without a proper process, claiming they threatened national security”.

The United States Embassy in Pristina called on Kosovo institutions to seek full responsibility from anyone who violates the law and reminded Kosovo leaders that <x0 security institutions should operate only within their constitutional authority”.

The deportation of six Turkish citizens at the end of March last year is said to have been done through a co-ordinated action between intelligence services from Turkey and Kosovo.

But MPs, the president, prime minister and Kosovo Assembly Speaker have said they had no knowledge of the case. For the six Turkish citizens, Ankara suspects they are members of the organisation “Hizmet”, of Turkish religious leader Fetullah Gulen. The latter, Turkish authorities blame him for a coup effort in Turkey in 2016.