The Special raises first charges, six months to examine them

Such confirms Angela Greep, spokeswoman for the Specialised Chambers of Kosovo, until she emphasises that the Specialised President has appointed a preliminary procedure judge to examine the charges filed by the Specialised Prosecutor. But the contents of the charges are confidential to her right now.

The court's “Creu has appointed a court of preliminary procedure to reconsider the charges filed by the Special Prosecutor. At this point, unconfirmed charges are strictly confidential. The trial of the preliminary procedure has up to six months to decide whether to remove or accept the indictment”, says Angela Greep's response.

And, lawyer Tome Gashi says it's in the hands of the pre-procedure judge when I'm going to decide the “fat of these charges, which he says are two that were raised on February 24th.

Two days earlier on February 24th, we have set up two charges, and the special prosecutor's testimony to The Hague has proven itself, which has asked the tribunal's president to appoint a judge of the preliminary procedure. That judge is appointed, he is a French judge, and depending on the work of this judge and his staff, in a certain period of time that the maximum by law may be six to me, but that's not how it will happen. Because it will be confirmed or not much earlier, judgments will begin. Which is that we already have only two charges filed and it is a matter of full time when the judge of the preliminary procedure will decide with the fate of those charges”, Gashi declares.

He stresses that these charges will involve many people, but their names cannot currently be known.

A charge may involve some people, but their names cannot be known because at this stage of procedure at the Special Court everything is confidential. If the pre-procedure judge eventually confirms the indictment, then the names of the accused will be made public because it is a special court duty that after the eventual confirmation of the quota, the indictment through the secretariat is personally handed over to the accused person. And only when the indictment is confirmed, then a former KLA member can be called accused, until now are only suspects, even though the indictment has been established”, adds lawyer Tome Gashi.

Even the legal defender of some of the guests from Specialised Chambers, Arian Coci, points out that the charges have been filed. He raised concern that the fund that has been separated from the Kosovo government to help family members of persons with the indictment has not been managed properly.

Our top state must help family members of accused persons. They're the most important, and in the second row the lawyers come. Otherwise, if there are no options to pay, they can also be paid by the Special Prosecutor's Office fund. So I don't care about lawyers, but the families of the accused... We are in a phase of judicial absurdity where if an accused detainee, his family does not have the opportunity, like any detainee in Kosovo, to visit but must visit in The Hague, and this is an unaffordable expense for family faces”, Koci points out.

Koci likewise speaks with conviction that there will be many people in an act.

Kosovo Liberation Army Veterans Organisation Chairman Hysni Gucati says the pronunciation of the charges will be a challenge for the Government of Kosovo. Until you repeat that this court should not be formed at all.

It's a very big cost. Right now we know the government has divided 2 million and something. That means those two million don't even meet 10 percent of their expenses. They've already been spent because I know there's been some tools paid, some lawyers paid up so far. So I had called on the Government of Kosovo to take this job seriously, to deal with our friends, whoever goes there, to be prepared for the challenge that awaits, because this is a challenge for our government. The Kosovo government should be very much prepared for these friends of ours who will go there”, Gucati claims.

Among other things, Gucati has stressed that calls for interview by this court have no stop.

“One of them is of the high, high-level hierarchy, which has been in popular motion, his name will be made public tomorrow. That's what we agreed with the colleague, tomorrow he'll be public. It was high profile, in the hierarchy of the first popular movement that has been... has been in power, known before the war, now it's not in power, but the name will be made public tomorrow”, Gucati adds to Kosovas.

According to him, the insulting language used during these days by the former Kosovo Liberation War soldiers themselves will not dim the clean image of the KLA. However, Hysni Gucati claims that this language is not good for Kosovo.

The Special Court was established on the basis of a law adopted in 2015 by the Kosovo Assembly under pressure from Western Kosovo allies to try crimes committed by KLA members during and shortly after the 1998-1999 war.