Editor in News Week: Beden to fight for justice in the Balkans, Specialised Chambers Demean Kosovo

He has called on President Biden to intervene to ensure even special court reform in The Hague, so that trials can be managed in line with the principles of justice.

Through an editorial, Sheehan for EULEX and Specialised Chambers in The Hague have said that under the supervision of Europe, their guides and funders have become owners and controllers, converting institutions into more than vehicles to advance European policy goals, clearly different from American ones.

This is well explained by breaking last summer's agreement on normalising relations between Serbia and Kosovo, an agreement that was America's main goal in The Western Balkans for more than a decade. A meeting to sign a Washington-brokered agreement between presidents Serbia and Kosovo were scheduled for June. This meeting didn't happen. Hours before Kosovo President Hashim Thaci was flying across the Atlantic, the Specialised Prosecutor at The Hague announced he had filed an indictment in court. The guerrilla leader, converted to a politician, and three of his associates would be tried for crimes against humanity during the 1990s conflict. So, meeting in Washington had to be canceled. The moment of announcement seemed more than random, especially since it was contrary to procedure. The charges were supposed to be made public only after they were confirmed by a judge of the preliminary procedure (which only happened in November). The reason for violating the protocol, according to the prosecutor, was due to a secret <x1fuges” to undermine the court by the president and chairman of the Parliament Kosovo “to ensure that they do not face justice”, an apparent attempt to create an impression of guilt before the issue begins. The EU did not like the Washington-brokered agreement because it was intended to pave the way for a controversial territorial exchange. Serbia and Kosovo were willing to discuss exchange of territory. The EU, however, was not interested. A European court aimed at managing justice for past crimes became a tool for politics in the present”, he has written.

At the House of International Criminal Court and International Court Justice in The Hague, according to this editorial published in the large American media, Sheehan says that the only Kosovars are sitting and facing a trial, where all judges, prosecutors and relief personnel were and are all international.

The other “the other reality is that the EU does not like post-independence leadership. They have the right to maintain such a view. But, a court, supposedly Kosovar and independent, has become a tool to turn its views into work -- to clean up politicians with whom it disagrees. The court has already plunged into scandal”, he says.

Speaker of Chambers Specialization of Kosovo, Judge Ekaterina Trendafilova, Sheehan writes she was caught breaking the court's own rules, secretly offering confidential information to funders and diplomats The EU on the structure and procedure for future cases in court, before defence lawyers were announced. While in another incident, Sheehan says the chief prosecutor allowed three boxes of confidential documents containing witness identity to be filmed.

The only objective conclusion is that it is not the Kosovo leadership who is undermining the specialised rooms. Kosovo, but it is the leadership of the Chambers Specializing what is undermining Kosovo. Perhaps, as expected, Trendafilova has an inappropriate reputation. She led judgments The International Criminal Court, as well as many scandals, for Kenya's president, Uhuru Kenyatta, and for his then deputy, William Ruto, who, as such, failed. By chance, information about EU funders and the flow of witness identity were the main factors contributing to these failures. Similarly, the court claimed it was mined by the Kenyan government, but it became clear that it was the opposite”, writes Sheehan.

He says that in the Kosovo court, the same as the ICC with Kenya before it, major concern has been made about how to achieve sentences, even at the expense of justice.

Whatever started as an instrument to hold responsible for past crimes and, therefore, building the justice institution in the country, CHAka went through the mirror of sight. Whether you withdraw billions of dollars from the court or withdraw them completely, President Biden must intervene to ensure court reform. The issue is not to change the outcome, but to ensure that the trials are administered in accordance with the principles of justice, and that has not yet seen Kosovars. As senator and member of the ranking minority committee External Relations The Senate, Biden believed that justice was necessary during the Yugoslav wars. On a Journey to Bosnia in 1993, he met with Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic, who was told: “I think you're a bloody war criminal and you should be tried as such”. Thirty years later, as president of the United States United States, it must prevent the return of injustice to the Balkans”, written on Neews Week, Executive Director of School Public and International Affairs at the University of Baltimore, Ivan Sascha Sheehan.