Who's protecting former KLA members?

Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veselini, Jakup Krasniqi, Rexhep Selimi and Salih Mustafa, in their judicial processes will be protected by lawyers who have also served as prosecutors and have won well-known cases related to war crimes, including genocide in Rwanda, killings in the wars of the former Yugoslavia's spaces, and war crimes committed in various parts of the world.

Hashim Thaci's Protection

Former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci has so far introduced a three-man defence team.

Pierre Richard Prosper is Thaci's chief defence attorney, who during the war has been political director of the KLA.

Prosper has a long career in investigating war crimes.

He has held several important positions such as the position of Ambassador General for War Crimes Issues under the administration of former US president George W. Bush. This post, he exercised from 2001 to 2005.

During 1996 until the end of 1998, Prosper served as war crimes prosecutor at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

During that time, he prosecuted the first case of genocide under the Universal Convention on Human Rights on the Prevention and Punishment of Crime and Genocide.

In addition to winning the 14-month-long trial, Prosper also opened new ground on international law by reaching to persuade Tribunal to accept rape during times of conflict as an act of genocide and a crime against humanity.

Former President Hashim Thaci appeared in front of the Specialised Chambers on November 9th, and in the absence of Prosper, British lawyer David Hooper attended the hearing.

Its main area over the past 20 years has been on International Criminal Law.

Hooper was the chief defence lawyer in front of the International Tribunal for Rwanda in the case of Andre Rwamacuban, a minister in Rwanda, 1994, and later for Atsengimanan, a Catholic priest accused of genocide.

At the end of the process, both were acquitted.

One of former President Thaci's lawyers is Kosovo's Dastid Pallaska. Polaska is specialising in banks and finances, unions and purchases and project financing.

The Protection of Kadri Wessel

British Ben Emmerson will be a defence lawyer for former Democratic Party of Kosovo leader (PDK) Kadri Wessel was a member of the KLA General Staff during the war.

Emmerson is known to the Kosovo public, especially for the court processes against former Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj within the framework of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

Haradinaj, among other things, was accused of persecution as well as torture during the recent war in Kosovo. In both trials that were conducted against him, Ramush Haradinaj was declared innocent.

Ben Emmerson has represented several foreign governments in connection with international armed conflicts, including Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia and Ukraine.

He has also represented Wikipedia's founder, Julian Assang, in connection with an attempt to extradite him to Sweden.

In addition to these cases, Emmerson has been a lawyer in many cases of top state officials from various parts of the world.

Emmerson attended the November 10th session through the video connection, while his colleague Andrew was in the hall. Kayley.

He is a British lawyer with a long career in investigating crimes against humanity.

Under The Hague Tribunal, he directed the investigation against Serbian General Ratko Mladic.

Kayley has also been among the first prosecutors under The Hague Tribunal to investigate former Kosovo Liberation Army members (UÇK). He was the prosecutor in the trial process against Fatmir Limaj, Haradin Bala and Isak Musliu, who were accused of committing war crimes.

Jakup Krasniqi Protection

Jakup Krasniqi, former spokeswoman for the Kosovo Liberation Army, said he had decided not to engage a defence lawyer after he said he believed in his innocence.

But Krasniqi said he would have been instructed by family and friends to have this lawyer.

The former head of the Kosovo Assembly will protect the lawyer from Malaysia, Venkateswari Alagedra.

One of the best-known cases she represented, Alagedra was when she defended Saif al-Islam Gaddhafi, son of former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddhafi.

Rexhep Selimi defence

Rexhep Selimi will be represented before the court by British lawyer David Young.

He is a criminal law specialist, with expertise in International Criminal Law.

One of his biggest cases is that of Assad Hassan Sabra, who was accused of involvement in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Sabra was finally acquitted.

Young leads a wide team of lawyers who have been or are involved in protecting their clients near the International Criminal Court, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the Tribunal for Rwanda, Kosovo Specialised Chambers, the Tribunal for Cambodia, and other Tributals.

Protecting Salih Mustafa

Less internationally recognised lawyer has the other former KLA member, Salih Mustafa, who is charged with war crimes.

The Mustaf will protect the Dutch, Julius Von Bone.

Von Bonne has mostly been taken in local cases and helps and advises on voluntary grounds organizations and persons who have been in financial trouble.

What are they accused of, Thaci, Veselin, Krasniqi and Selimi?

The prosecution accuses Thaci, Veselin, Krasniqi and Selimi of committing war crimes against hundreds of civilians and persons who did not participate in the fighting.

Specialised rooms claim that for these crimes, Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veselini, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi bear criminal responsibility as individuals on the basis of various forms of criminal responsibility for crimes filed in the indictment.

The indictment claims that from March 1998 to September 1999, Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veselini, Rexhep Selimi, Jakup Krasniqi and other members of the joint criminal establishment have shared the same goal of taking over and exercising control all over Kosovo with all means, including intimidation, mistreatment, the exercise of violence and elimination of those whom they considered to be rivals<1>

According to the indictment, the victims were mainly people who during wartime were perceived as collaborators of Yugoslav forces, officials or state institutions, or even as failing to support KLA goals.

That, according to the indictment, included persons linked to the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) and persons of Serbian, Roma and other ethnicities.

The indictment claims that Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veselini, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi, personally have participated in <x0 threats, interrogation, mistreatment and detention of opponents”.

The act also mentions the existence of detention centers in Licoc, Jablanice, Llapushnik, Drenoc, and so on.

The Act against Salih Mustaf

Specialised chambers have confirmed charges of war crimes even against former KLA superior Salih Mustaf, who has already been declared innocent of acts weighing upon him.

Based on the indictment, Mustafa is accused of arbitrary ban, cruel treatment, torture and unlawful murder.

These crimes Mustafa accused of were allegedly committed during April 1999 at a detention centre in the village of Zlath, located in the Pristina municipality.

Both Mustafa and Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veselin and Jakup Krasniqi have been declared innocent of the charges they are charged with.

How is the defense of the accused paid?

In 2015, the Government of Kosovo adopted the Law on Law Protection and Financial Support of potential-guilty persons in judicial processes near Specialised Chambers.

Under this law, each accused has the right to financial assistance and coverage of defence expenditures.

The “all persons charged have the right to request assistance in covering defence spending and the commitment of independent, experienced and competent defenders, paid from the Kosovo budget, accommodated for the purposes of this law”, the law says.

But despite the law, the manner and form of payment of some of the lawyers who have been engaged by former KLA members, which have been confirmed the indictment, remains unclear.

The government has not yet determined how to select lawyers and whether there is a certain limit to what amount, a lawyer who protects the accused can be paid.

According to the 2015 Law, for financial assistance to those charged by the Special Court, the court's legal protection of the accused, including the defender's commitment, is done according to the legal acts the Ministry of Justice is obliged to adopt.

But there is still no such document.

In the meantime, the Ministry of Justice in the Government of Kosovo has issued an administrative guide through which it is regulated the way all persons who face court processes near Kosovo's Specialised Chambers and who, under firm form ruling, declared themselves innocent.

So far, the Government of Kosovo has spent about 61 thousand euros from Kosovo's budget to cover the expenses of some of the persons interviewed by the Specialised Prosecutor.

In a response to Radio Free Europe, on November 9th, the Kosovo Ministry of Justice has said that for this year the budget divided on the issue has been around 7m euros. Some 6.7m euros have been allocated for the year 2021.

But the accused also have an opportunity to engage in the defence attorney. Under the Law for Specialised Chambers, every person accused of having no financial opportunity to engage a lawyer is guaranteed the right to have free legal representation.

Specialised Chambers and Specialised Prosecutor's Office, also known as the Special Court, investigate the alleged crimes of members of the Kosovo Liberation Army committed against ethnic minorities and political rivals from January 1998 to December 2000.

These alleged crimes are mentioned in a 2011 Council of Europe report, author of which is Swiss senator Dick Marty.