Çitaku hits back at the British ambassador over the Specialist Chambers verdict: ‘Don’t throw dust in our eyes’

Vlora Çitaku, secretary-general of the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), has reacted to the statements of the British ambassador in Kosovo, Jonathan Hargreaves, regarding the verdict of the Specialist Chambers in The Hague against the former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

Çitaku rejected the interpretation that the Specialist Chambers’ decision concerns only individual responsibility for crimes against members of different communities, saying that the case, in her view, goes beyond the responsibility of the four convicted men.

In her reaction, she focused on the court’s findings regarding the alleged joint criminal enterprise. The Assembly of Kosovo, in a declaration adopted on 28 September, also called the conclusion on the existence of a joint criminal purpose unacceptable.

“Clearly, the honourable Ambassador has neither read the indictment, nor followed the proceedings, nor heard the Court’s ruling,” Çitaku wrote.

According to her, the process should not be reduced solely to the individual actions of the former KLA leaders.

“Because this is not about convictions for individual acts. The KLA has been qualified as a joint criminal enterprise. That is the essence. That is the weight of this decision. And you cannot cover that up with one diplomatic sentence,” she wrote.

Çitaku also criticised the way the verdict could be relativised in public and political discourse.

“Don’t throw dust in our eyes. You may accept this decision. You may relativise it. You may reduce it to four names and move on, as if nothing had happened,” she wrote.

She added that she would not accept the KLA’s war being described in language that, in her view, links the liberation war to criminality.

“But not us. We will not stay silent while our war for freedom is described in the language of criminality. We will not accept our history being rewritten for anyone’s political comfort. No. Not in my name,” Çitaku said.

Ambassador Hargreaves said on Tuesday that “the recent sentences concern individual crimes committed against victims from different communities. They in no way constitute a judgment on the statehood, sovereignty or right of Kosovo to determine its future, which the United Kingdom will continue to defend strongly.”

Çitaku has in recent days also raised concerns about how the verdict could affect the interpretation of the KLA war, arguing that the issue goes beyond the legal fate of Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi, as Telegrafi reports.