Special Court shows when Nasim Haradinaj is expected to testify

During the media conference held Thursday, Doyle has provided up-to-date information on recent developments regarding judicial procedures and activities in this court.

Doyle has indicated that three court cases were held during this week in Kosovo's Specialised Chambers.

He said that in the Salih Mustafa court case, at the beginning of the week, the court has heard the witness called by the specialised prosecutor, who testified with protective measures, including change of voice, face and use of a nickname.

The witness gave almost all the evidence at the private hearing because of the identifying nature of the testimony. This witness gave brief testimony at the open session regarding the exhumation of a corpse in Zlatko”, Doyle has said, reports “Justice Vow”.

According to him, court hearings in the case will resume on January 18th with testimony from witness W04485, called by the Special Prosecutor's Office.

As for the case against Hysni Gucatit and Nasim Haradinaj, he said he presented his evidence last week to Gucati's defence.

The first witness to be called was the accused himself, who testified for three days. The Judicial Chamber heard testimony from five other witnesses who are members of the KLA War Veterans Organisation and journalists. This week for this court case, only one session was held on Wednesday, December 15,”, he said.

On the other hand, it revealed that the court authorized Gucatit's protection to give additional questions to two witnesses called by the prosecution in the months of October and November.

The defence questions were only related to material given to the defence following the closure of evidence from the prosecution. Defence questions were asked at private hearings to protect witness identity and information security”, Doyle said.

Also, he said that at the same session, Haradinaj's defence opened its issue, as well as made the opening statement.

Haradinaj's “Defense will begin with testing presentation on January 11th, 2022, after Mr. Haradinaj called for postponement due to the defender's disease. The court stressed that this disease is not a reason, in itself, to postpone the” judicial process, he said.

According to him, however, the court took into account the difficulties of co-preservation to communicate with the accused, in the absence of defenders, and has postponed the start of presenting evidence in the Haradinaj case on January 11th, when Haradinaj is expected to testify.

He made it known that on Wednesday, the ninth conference for the progress of the court case was held on the Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veselini, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi.

The questions for discussion included a host of points related to the extraction of evidence from the Prosecutor for Protection, the translation of a preliminary list of witnesses, the conduct of investigations and the protocol of the specialised Prosecutor's preliminary file”, Doyle has said.

He also said that on December 10th, the pre-procedure judge issued the second decision on the victims' participation in the case, where he accepted 11 other victims to participate in the process and decided on safeguards related to these participating victims.

The “Victims in question will be included in the existing Group 1 of the participating victims and represented by the same defender of victims”, he announced.

In the court case against Peter Shala, he said the trial judge of the preliminary procedure yesterday ruled that he accepted a victim for participation in the judicial process and that he instructed the administration to appoint the victims' defenders within January 28th, 2022.

According to him, it is important to note that in all judicial cases in Kosovo's Specialised Chambers, the process of prescribing victims' requests for participation in judicial processes remains open.

Otherwise, Kosovo Specialised Chambers in The Hague every Thursday at 14:30, via online platform “Zoom” hold weekly information offering updated information on recent developments regarding judicial procedures and activities in this court.