Kosovo Specialist Chambers

Uh, they're waiting to see if they can have the time extended to prepare those appeals.

So we thought it'd be most useful to talk about, rather than just about the judgment, but about the whole shebang, about the KSC, uh, in the context of this judgment.

I'm gonna Stefopedia you some more before because we had talked about the witness intimidation, and we need to explain why we have this court instead of the other court.

So the Kosovo Specialist Chambers was created, essentially we had KLA trials at the ICTY, and they failed, for lack of a better word.

Thanks for having me here.

Fred is a researcher, a writer, and a human rights advocate with expertise in war crimes investigations and research methodologies, and he's currently co-director of the Ariadne Center for Justice in Berlin.

He worked for Human Rights Watch way back in the day, and he testified at both ICTY trials to do with Kosovo and at the Thaci trial here at the KSC.

And to take us into the minds of the Kosovo Albanians and what fighting for recognition and independence looks like from them and being told that the war for independence was somehow sullied by these crimes, we have Dee Morina van Utrecht.

Slobodan Milosevic's case, the former Yugoslav president, was indicted and tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, starting in 2002 with prosecutors like Jeffrey Nice, niece, handling major parts of the trial before Milosevic died in custody in 2006 before a verdict was reached.

Jack Smith's role, Jack Smith worked at the Hague years later as the chief prosecutor for the Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor's Office.

where he investigated and indicted former Kosovo President Hashim Tachi rather than Milosevic.

Smith later became U.S. Justice Department special counsel, handling special investigations into Donald Trump.

But from time to time, there will be funded opportunities.

So, for example, the Kosovo Specialist Chambers did have funded internships in the last year and probably will in the next year or two again.

So keep an eye out.

All right.

court.

So this special court, the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, was based in The Hague and it was going to take action against Thatchi and three other former senior KLA commanders.

What were they ultimately convicted of?

They were convicted of a number of things, including arbitrary detention.

So, in Kosovo at least, the KLA's struggle very much seen as a righteous one.

And this special court in The Hague, which was called the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, ruled that Thatchi, as a leader of the KLA, had command responsibility and in some cases personally participated in these offences that we're talking about.

And most of the victims, which is very interesting in this case, and we can come into this later if you like as well, most of the victims were themselves ethnic Albanians, but they were considered enemies or collaborators by the KLA, according to the judge's ruling.

Now, these offences took place three decades ago.

They were arrested in 2020, in November 2020.

So even the trial process itself took an awfully long time.

But the Kosovo Specialist Chambers Court wasn't set up until 2016.

And that was all part of this idea that in order to have reconciliation and to go forward that the war crimes courts needed to be seen to be covering offences which took place against every ethnic group in the Western Balkans.

He was sentenced along with three other senior members of the since disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army.

A special tribunal in The Hague, known as the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, handed down the judgments.

So people do get charged and convicted of war crimes.

Bear that in mind.

We're doing a bit of a deep dive into the current political situation, but also critically talking about, uh, really the main issue I suspect in the news now, uh, which is the, uh, verdict in the trial of the former president Hashim Thaçi.

But to understand, uh, that, I'm joined now by Arber Ahmedi, who is a doctoral candidate at the University of Vienna, and he specializes in transitional justice, and his dissertation works exactly on this topic of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers.

So the perfect guest to have on to help us understand what is going on.

But first, uh, Arber, let me welcome you to Talk Eastern Europe.

Uh, ICTY had two cases against Ramush Haradinaj and Fatmir Limaj, and out of six indictees, five were acquitted and one was, uh, convicted for war crimes.

United Nation Mission in Kosovo, which was, uh, this administration, transitional administration mission, uh, between nineteen-ninety-nine and two-thousand-eight when Kosovo declared independence, also pursued, uh, investigation and prosecution, uh, of these offenses, and also the European Union Rule of Law Mission, which was a transitory, uh, mission led by European Union in the period after the declaration, after Kosovo declared independence, after two-thousand-eight.

And the most recent addition is the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, and the source for this, uh, goes back to two-thousand-eleven, uh, a report on inhuman and degrading treatment and the traffic of human organs, illicit traffic of human organs, which is a report presented by Dick Marty, who was a member of Par- Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and was endorsed by the sa- same council in two-thousand-eleven.

Uh, and the report made, uh, serious allegations about involvement of Kosovo Liberation Army members in, uh, crimes against humanity, including the removal of organs, which was a very transactional accusation.