Lumez responds to Haxhi: War crimes investigation only takes place by prosecutors with exclusive legal competence

Lumez in his reaction to the media, which has been sent to the Public Communication Office to the State Prosecutor(ZKPSH), has said that the prosecution of the perpetrators of war crimes is not undertaken by the State Prosecutor nor by the government, but by those state prosecutors who have exclusive legal competencies for the prosecution of such acts.

Below:

Former State Prosecutor Alexander Lumez reacts to Justice Minister Albulen Haxhiu's statement.

For your knowledge as justice minister, the prosecution of the perpetrators of war crimes, and other criminal acts are not replaced by the State Chief Prosecutor, nor by governments, but by state prosecutors who have exclusive legal authority for prosecuting these criminal acts. Anyone who understands this differently is in a big misunderstanding with the principles of justice.

The war held in Kosovo caused great losses and destruction. Thousands of civilians killed among them children, women and men of all ages. Many others were injured. Thousands of other citizens disappeared. And hundreds of women and men were violated in different forms. Thousands of homes, property, buildings, and other important objects were destroyed and burned. Kosovo, in addition to human losses during the war, had suffered losses and serious material damage.

Granted, the treatment of war crimes has gone slowly, for this the best indicator is the small number of subjects committed.

The lack of political will and the establishment of an international conviction that Kosovo's justice institutions have ethnic prejudices and a lack of capacity for prosecution and trial of these cases have been strategic for internationals to obtain exclusive legal competencies for pursuing and judging war crimes subjects.

Initially, mission UNMIK, which had taken over Kosovo immediately after the war, was responsible for most of the rule of law. Where there was exclusive competence of war crimes and then the mission EULEX, which also had competence for handling these cases until June 2018.

Immediately after my arrival at the helm of the State Prosecutor's Office and as chief prosecutor of the Kosovo Prosecutorial Council, seeing the treatment of war crimes cases as reasonable, on May 13, 2015, for the first time the War Crimes Department was established in the Special Prosecutor of the Republic of Kosovo, where prosecutors and administrative personnel have been appointed.

Special prosecutors have been sent to intensive training by the chapter XV of the Kosovo Criminal Code over criminal acts against humanity and the most protected international values.

Recording of all cases entered into the War Crimes Department.

72 international warrants have been issued for the arrest of suspects, who are still powerful. Hundreds of witnesses have been heard and injured, we have taken concrete investigative actions in terms of the discovery of the perpetrators' perpetrators and the commanding officers of these criminal acts.

After the arrest of the suspects, dozens of charges have been filed and we have had successful judgments.

During 2018 we have transferred from EULEX 918 war crimes materials of different natures and 2000 persons missing.

In 2019 we increased the number of prosecutors at the Department of War Crimes in the Special Prosecutor of the Republic of Kosovo, and the same year has been issued, the Strategy for handling war crimes cases.

For the identification of these cases, we have increased co-operation with NGOs who have collected information about war crimes and interviewed individuals who have information on these cases.

We've been working with witnesses who are constantly witnessing at the DA.

We have also established the database in the Special Prosecutor of the Republic of Kosovo for war crimes cases and have harmonised this database with that of the Kosovo Police.

All these actions give us the right to believe that the State Prosecutor's Institute this year and the following years will produce concrete results in handling war crimes cases and justice will be established for war victims and their families.

What have you done besides political rhetoric?

In this case, the justice ministry's statements spread the non-recognition of actions taken by justice institutions, respectively, the State Prosecutor, downplaying all achieved state and institutional from the time of EULEX's taking competencies to local institutions.