The former tribunal investigation of the former Yugoslavia: The 45-year prison requirement is overloading the burden of evidence

The specialised Prosecutor's request to The Hague has also reacted to the former Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia's investigation, Nevenka Tromp, which has estimated that the prosecutor has exceeded his position and the burden of evidence. She has added that the 45-year prison requirement for Hashim Thaci and others constitutes, according to her, a life defacto sentence.

The Hague's former tribunal investigator, Nevenka Tromp, praises the prosecution's application for 45 years in prison for each of the former KLA leaders as an excessive prosecution, exceeding the burden of available evidence. According to her, the lack of evidence is often compensated for demands of prison sentences.

You know, when you work in the academic world, one of the first laws to be taught is that everything that happened should be possible, so whatever it is possible. But for us, it is far more important to see whether there are comparisons between what has happened today at the Kosovo Special Court and others. Yes, analogy and comparisons can take place among former Yugoslavia's tribunalines, prosecution of Tihomir Blashkiq, who has been a Croatian Army officer in Bosnia, the so-called HINA HVO. He had held de jure position in that army. He was charged with crimes between 1993-1994, in central Bosnia, as well as portrayed as Bosnia's Muslim capital of criminal violence. So, the prosecution had asked for 45 years in his case, and then, you know what had happened in the Appeals? The 45-year prison sentence had softened in 9 years, and was released almost immediately after the appeals hearing. Thus, this is a classic case of cross-procedure, the prosecutor has surpassed his position, the burden of evidence, as well as, fortunately, the appeals chamber had ascertained this, as well as the sentence had contracted to 9 years”, said the former Hague Tribunal investigator.

According to Tromp, the Blach case represents the best historical perspective to understand the current situation, as excessive prosecution had been dropped by the Tribunal Appeal Room for the Former Yugoslavia.

Former surveyor Tromp said there are two messages for Kosovo. Firstly, the 45-year prison requirement for Thaci and the others is de-phacto life sentence, as the accused are 60 to 70 years old.

This requirement for 45 years in prison does not mean that the Judicial Chamber will accept it as such, because we still have to wait for the defence side's arguments, the way the defence argument will be built before judges. However, if the Judiciary Chamber agrees with the prosecution, as well as actually pronounces that sentence of 45 years in prison, we need to know that it is not the law in question, there is something behind the law, and this is the demonstration of power, not to talk about whose power or how it is demonstrated. The Appeals Chamber will then have an extremely important task, to test the right, and then if the Appeals Chamber continues by not rejecting that possible sentence for 45 years, that would ultimately mean that this court, the Specialised Chamber of Kosovo, is not a fair court, and that this kind of sentence is incompatible with the practices we have seen at the Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the Tribunal for Rwanda, as well as other international tribuents. So there are 2-3 years away, to see what kind of justice this court will produce”, she said.

Tromp has also compared the sentences pronounced by the Tributal for the former Yugoslavia for genocide crime in Bosnia and Herzegovina, citing cases of Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, who, according to her, have only been sentenced to life imprisonment. She stressed that the measure of the currently required sentences is far from the practice followed by other international tribunaals.

According to Tromp, no such standard constitutes regular practice of the Prosecution when it comes to the severity of the sentence being demanded./Periscopi/