Former Hague prosecutor: A 45-year prison requirement against KLA four-year emergency

Unnecessary and politically influenced, he considers the Special Court, the man who led the prosecution of Balkan leadership, Slobodan Milosevic.

The former Hague Tribunal prosecutor for the former Yugoslavia, Geoffrey Nice in an interview for Kosovo Press, speaks of the Special Prosecutor's request for a 45-year prison sentence for the KLA quarter, which he considers unusual. He is also declared on the charges they are charged with and their origin from the Dick Marty report.

Briton Geoffrey Nietzsche says he has never predicted that the new court could be founded for war crimes investigations, much less for him to deal with just a certain group.

The chief prosecutor in Slobodan Milosevic's case, which did not receive epilogue because the same one died during the trial in The Hague, says the prosecution's request for sentences of nearly half a century for each of the KLA's four quarters is unusual.

The prosecutor of the Milosevic case reacts for the 45 years required against the KLA.

Well, it seems a kind of weird punishment to ask for, because I don't believe, of the very few I know, that the charges against him are as serious as, for example, some of the charges made and convicted, probably less years in prison than 45 years in the former Yugoslavia's Tribulal”, he says.

The 81-year-old British lawyer, Geoffrey Nice, shows that after working at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, he was asked to write an article about “London Review of Books”, concerning Dick Marty's report, which, as Nice put it, claimed that Hashim Thaci and the others were involved in the murder of Serbs.

These were just claims that Nice says today, stressing that charges of organ trafficking were made by Serbs as well as Croats and Bosniaks.

International lawyer, Geoffrey Nice, who has once been involved with local institutions through his opinions regarding Kosovo's Specialised Chambers, says that since the beginning it had felt that this court had “indirect intentions”.

Thus, the British, who has long careers in the area of international and public criminal law, in the interview for Kosovo Press, emphasises that he has considered the establishment of Kosovo's specialised Chambers at The Hague from the beginning.

At the Special Court so far, there are six people charged with alleged war crimes -- Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veselini, Jakup Krasniqi, Rexhep Selimi, Peter Shala and Salih Mustafa. Shala is sentenced to 13 years in prison, meanwhile Mustafa to 15 years.

What the epilogue will be in the case of Thaci and others, known as the great trial, Nica says it is difficult to predict.

Considering that he has led the prosecution against the Balkan Casap, he stresses that he has not anticipated even that ever the new court for war crimes investigation would be established.

Specialised rooms are part of Kosovo's judicial system, but operate international staff at The Hague in the Netherlands.

The European Union is the main sponsor of the Special Court, which was founded in 2015 by the Assembly of Kosovo, following the international community's request.

The former prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is asked whether he considers politics to have influence on this judicial process.

Since Kosovo's declaration of independence, the country has been constantly “under the Bay” of this court, says Geoffrey Nice. He points out that it is important that truth be recorded correctly.

The case against Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veselini, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi has already been closed and the case is in the hands of judges for the decision. They have said their final words on February 18th, where they have again been declared innocent of all charges filed by the Special Prosecutor's Office.

Even the KLA's four-point defense teams have demanded that the same be declared innocent of all points of indictment.

After concluding statements of parties marking the final phase of the process, the court has 90 days to make the decision, but this deadline can be extended at the request of the panel. The exact date of the judgment proclamation is still unknown.

The trial against them has begun on April 3, 2023, nearly three years after confirming the indictment since former KLA leaders are held at The Hague detention centre.