3 hours agoWar Crimes Investigations With Four Prosecutors
Periskopi(5 years ago)
(5 years ago)Fetah Berisha from the village of Burim, the municipality of Vushtrri, has killed father and uncle during the war, while an missing brother. Berisha tells Radio Free Europe that since the war ended in 1999, no justice system official has asked him or any other family members for the murder case [...]
Fetah Berisha from the village of Burim, the municipality of Vushtrri, has killed father and uncle during the war, while an missing brother. Berisha tells Radio Free Europe that since the war ended in 1999, no justice system official has asked him or any other family members for the murder and disappearance of his brother.
Berisha stressed that there is evidence of the murders that have occurred, but as he puts it, there is no hope that the perpetrators could be brought to justice.
There's no one in our family who took any notes and knows nothing... as if nothing had happened. We are not optimistic that something will be enlightened. At this pace of work and at this system of justice, we do not expect anything. If you change something, if the number of prosecutors and judges increases, maybe something changes. Otherwise, I don't know, that's how we are [in this situation] and many families who lost their families during the war”, Berisha said.
Since the end of the war so far -- in Kosovo, Serbia and The Hague -- fewer than 70 persons have been sentenced for war crimes.
According to data from the Fund for Humanitarian Law in Kosovo, which has monitored the trials processes in war crimes cases, it is said that by now, in Kosovo, for war crimes in judicial processes, 111 people have been involved, while only 41 of them have been convicted.
According to nongovernmental organisations dealing with this issue, the Kosovar Centre for the rehabilitation of Torture's Survivors. [ Footnote] QKRMT] and Fund for Humanitarian Law in Kosovo [ FDHK, Kosovo institutions are still not taking war crimes treatment seriously because prosecutors are missing the case.
The Kosovo Prosecutorial Council says that currently in the Special Prosecutor of the Republic of Kosovo, only four prosecutors are working on handling and investigating war crimes cases. Under the Special Prosecutor's Office is the special department dealing with war crimes. They have added that this council has made an internal declaration for the two prosecutors' advance on this prosecutor as well.
More than 13,500 people were killed during the 1998-99 war.
On the other hand, Feride Rushiti, executive director at the Kosovar Centre for the rehabilitation of Torture Survivors (QKRMT), says the war crimes issue should have greater numbers and stronger commitment of prosecutors.
This small number of prosecutors, notes how seriously war crimes are handled and this limited number of prosecutors, points out then the failure to commit war crimes and the impunity of all those crimes”, Rushiti said.
According to the Fund for Humanitarian Law data, during the 1998 and 1999 war in Kosovo, more than 13,500 people were killed, most of whom were Albanian civilians.
The bloodiest month was April 1999 when 4,082 people were killed.
Bekim Blakaj from the Fund for Humanitarian Law, tells Radio Free Europe that it is unintelligible why at the Special Prosecutor's Crime Department, so few prosecutors took to war crimes.
But we don't believe that it's enough just to increase the number of prosecutors, of course they have to back up with other staff. The fact or information from this prosecutor indicates that it is necessary to increase the number because they have inherited many subjects from EULEX”, Blakaj said.
In Serbia, for war crimes in Kosovo, 17 people have been sentenced to decision of formal form, where two of them have been Albanians.
While, at the International War Crimes Tribunal in the former Yugoslavia, headquartered at The Hague in the Netherlands, eight people have been sentenced -- of them two Albanians, members of the Kosovo Liberation Army.
The permanent legal adviser to the American Department of Justice, Lana Morton-Owens, in an interview for the law-governance show, says Kosovo has inherited about 1,000 cases of war crimes by UNMIK and EULEX.
These prosecutors are placed in an unfair position because they have inherited all these cases and they are about 15 years old. I think there's been some improvement and there should be more. We hear many conversations from different politicians, how they're going to create new institutions and want to do a lot of things when it comes to war crimes, but you don't hear much about placing more resources in the prosecutor and police, to make sure they have what they need to bring these cases to court”, Morton-Owens said.
The Kosovo Prosecutorial Council, in a response to Radio Free Europe, has said that in its work plans and policies, it is consistently empowering prosecutors with new human capacities.
