Polaska: Thaci and others are being detained with assumptions

Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veselini, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi, from November 2020, are continuing to stay at The Hague detention centre on which charges weigh down under war crimes claim, and besides the statuteal conferences, the judicial process has not yet begun.

Lawyer Dastid Pallaska says that during the past year the process has been accompanied by major procedural violations, which have made defence work difficult.

The procedure has gone poorly because the process has been accompanied by major procedural violations that have made it difficult not only for our work but also prevented the realisation of the rights of the people before this court. Basically, we've been dealing with preliminary motions where we have opposed this court's jurisdiction in the sense that, the jurisdiction as approved by the Assembly of Kosovo, is extremely limited, so any criminal acts prosecuted there must be directly related to Dick Marty's claims, respectively, to crimes he claims to have identified there. While you have seen the indictment, the indictment is extremely broad almost everything and some way loses its special effect”, Pallaska says.

Thaci's lawyer says there is no condition for keeping him in custody.

According to him, why Thaci and others have turned themselves in voluntarily, treatment there is becoming as if the same were arrested.

“Despite the fact that my client and most of those found there have voluntarily surrendered, in our case former President Thaci has given up on the personal constitutional immunity that has protected him personally from arrest and custody, he is considered to have been arrested and treated there as if he were a person caught in the neighbourhood, aiming to evade justice. On the other hand, no condition for keeping him in custody exists, despite this he is kept there with assumptions, hypothesis that may influence any procedure even though no single concrete evidence has been provided so far to justify this doubt that he could prevent the development of procedures in the way it is envisioned by law or that it may affect other forms in this” procedure, he says.

Despite the opening possibility of parole, defence requirements have been rejected, and Thaci and others at the court's decision remained in custody.

“has been an unpleasant experience, distrust is terrible, does not coincide with reality in Kosovo, distrust not only of my client, who has so far shown readiness, established the tribunal itself, has surrendered, has given up immunity from all positions, but also of the state of Kosovo itself. The biggest paradox we've seen, although it's very difficult to detect a paradox because there are almost every day of paradox, is that Kosovo police are treated as if it were a private company that should offer guarantees for its will to fulfill or observe court orders. We know that the Kosovo Police is a public institution that has the legal and constitutional obligation to carry out court commands”, Pallaska says.

According to him, if legal conditions for parole have been met, the Kosovo Police's capacities cannot be rational that someone is not released on bail.

He adds that the state must supply capacities in order to implement the law.

“President Thaci has also needed to give up certain constitutional rights, for example with the monitoring system in some way, even the country where his parole was proposed in Kosovo has faced more a prison, in the strictness of oversight than a conventional home arrest. And normally to achieve this proposed arrangement, former President Thaci has had to give up certain constitutional rights, for example monitoring his movements inside, abroad and so on, but neither has that been enough, and this has indirectly proved that all discussion about conditions is pointless, because the prejudices that exist against Kosovo as a state, to the capacities of our law enforcement institutions, are the main reason why they are held there, he says.

Pallaska cites cases of former Serbian officers and officials who were tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and who had been released on bail under the guarantees of Serbia's Police, though the same, he adds, was an active part of the crimes that were the object of the indictment at the time.

While you see it absurd that now a court that is part of the Kosovo system is not being entrusted to the police of this state, which is considered a reliable model and partner by internationals.

The “is totally an indictment or substance that has deviations from reality, selectively out of context of certain events that have resulted in a logical dissonance. People who have little memory in the last 20 years cannot link what is claimed to have happened there, and I really think it's probably the weakest subject that existed in all of this history that we've had here, whether in the UNMIK jurisdiction, whether the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, then EULEX and so on. In fact, most claims have only fallen from these courts, as we know Mr. Haradinaj has been released, Mr. Limaj has been released, now how it is possible at the local commander's level to prove that there is no basis for guilt and to claim that at the highest level there is responsibility”, he says.

Pallaska says the number of witnesses proposed by the prosecution is unmanable, while adding that, according to this, it is estimated, for five and a half years, only to end the first degree.

“We have an unprecedented witness protection regime, of editing information not only for the general public but also in relation to the defense there, banal nature editing, nor is it known when, who, who, what did it do, every aspect of a claim is edited that no one is able to defend against an unknown” charge, Pallaska says.

Lawyer Pallaska says the prosecution has filed an indictment without being fully ready, and what he says represents a non-serity on their part.

The procedure has handed over its indictment now more than a year and a half, has been confirmed more than a year, while investigations continue. Anyone investigating an indictment he is convinced enough to submit to the court. This is the best indication that the prosecution has been completely unprepared and the handover of the indictment, the beginning of this case, has been probably influenced by cases that are not of legal nature, because otherwise a good lawyer, whoever you do the job, on the prosecution's side or on the defense side, you never hand over something to a judge for which he's not even convinced, and the best indicator you're convinced in what you're given to the court is that it's the best you've had. And if someone gave up something unfinished, it indicates that it was a semi-x1 product, he says.

Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veselini, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi are being held in custody in The Hague by November 2020. In their first presentations at the Specialised Chambers in The Hague, they have been declared innocent.