Kurti: Serbia and Russia will try to use the Hague Specialist Chambers’ decision against Kosovo

Kosovo’s Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, said today after the Kosovo Government meeting that Serbia and Russia “will try to use” against Kosovo the decision of the Specialist Chambers in The Hague, by which four former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) were convicted at first instance to multi-year prison terms for war crimes, as the newspaper Danas reports.

Kurti told reporters that “a joint campaign in the field of public diplomacy” must be launched, adding: “It is clear that they will not have it as easy as they thought, because the so-called Yellow House and the alleged organ trafficking did not even make it into the indictment, let alone the judgment. The judgment also found that there were no crimes against humanity, nor systematic and widespread persecution of the civilian population. So the KLA did not do anything of the sort.”

On 16 September the Hague Specialist Chambers sentenced Hashim Thaçi and Jakup Krasniqi to 25 years in prison each, Kadri Veseli to 18 years and Rexhep Selimi to 13 years for war crimes, including unlawful or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, cruel treatment, torture and murder.

After this decision, Albanians organised protests in Pristina and around the world, while the deputies of the Kosovo Assembly adopted a Declaration rejecting as unacceptable the conclusion on the existence of a joint criminal enterprise of the four men convicted at first instance. The Declaration asks the Specialist Chambers “not to exceed their mandate” and that it be established that there existed a joint criminal enterprise to expel Albanians from Kosovo, carried out through the state, military and police apparatus of the Yugoslav and Serbian authorities. The Democratic Party of Kosovo demanded the adoption of amendments to the Law on the Specialist Chambers, including limiting their mandate.