“Disturbing Special Arrests” Ombudsman to seek monitoring trial at The Hague

Disturbing has named the ombudsman Naim Celaj, arresting four people on December 5th by the Special Court.

The special on Thursday 5 December has arrested former Justice Minister Hajredin Kuchin, former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army, Isni Kilaj, former head of the Kosovo Agency for Intelligence, the Smaj Union and former KLA fighter Fadil Fazliu.

All of this situation, lawyer Qelaj told EO that he has been conveyed with concern, considering that the persons arrested have been carrying many important processes and institutions in Kosovo.

“We have witnessed with concern all developments that took place in The Hague tribunal Specialised Chambers. Of course, recent actions have been disturbing because they concern people who are both prominent, influential public personalities in Kosovo, as university professor, then host many important processes and institutions in Kosovo”, he has said.

The key has said that even more disturbing remains the fact of what it is doing with defence teams in the case of Thaci and others accused of war crimes, where weeks ago through a defence team paperwork has issued alarms that judges are being partial.

Based on this letter, the court reportedly sided with the prosecution during witness questioning, and on this occasion Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veselini, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi have lost confidence in the impartiality of the Special Judges.

This has been expressed in a 12-page letter, the lawyers of four war crimes indictees. For this, Celaj has called for Kosovo justice institutions to pay attention to this situation as to whether rights in defence are being violated.

But what has been of concern to us is the fact that it is being done in relation to the defence teams and the Court, the Prosecutor and all the institutions should follow their attention that access to protection is being violated because I believe that it then compromises the entire judicial process and causes it to violate the equality of ʹarche) in the middle of parties in criminal procedure that is one of the main principles of a fair and impartial judgment. Not to mention the length of this process and many other aspects that are important”, he said.

The ombudsman has said they have limited mandates with Specialised Chambers in The Hague, underlining the lack of direct access and co-operation with the tribunal. He said that as an institution, they have planned for early next year to take steps to monitor several court sessions.

But what's main is we have a limited mandate in relation to this tribunal, so the information we provide to them is what the media have, what other authorities have, and that's a very big loan to us. At the beginning of my term I had several meetings with the heads of the Court, I visited the prisoners at the time, I contacted them and raised my concerns in the annual report of the ombudsman. These concerns were mainly on the basis of statements and information that I have managed to obtain even at the meeting with the Court Speaker and her staff and prisoners. But from then on, there is not a communication, an activity that will be considered a partnership. We monitor, monitor the process as long as technical possibilities allow us through information tools, we don't have an official communication channel. However, I believe that next year, from the beginning of the year, we will plan that we may have a monitoring of the judicial process of at least a few sessions so that we can understand what is really happening at this” Court, he has said.

The Specialised Chambers and Prosecutor's Office Specialised in The Hague, in the new indictment against former President Hashim Thaci and Kuci, Smajt, Kilajt and Fazliu, accuses them of criminal acts linked to <x0 claims of unlawful attempts to influence witness evidence in the war crimes trial of Thaci and others”.

In the indictment, the meetings Thaci held with the other four indictees at The Hague's detention centre are described, and it claims he has given instructions on how to testify in the case against him.

The Specialised Prosecutor's Office also claims that during the raids he conducted in Kosovo, some indictees have found evidence, as are lists of witness names or even instructions on how they should testify.