Kosovo's acting Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, believes there is no longer any legal reason for the former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) - who are being tried for war crimes in The Hague - to still be held in detention in the Dutch city.
On the fifth anniversary of the arrest and detention of Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selim, Kurti wrote on Facebook that "The prosecution has concluded its case. There are no more witnesses. There are neither legal nor moral reasons to keep them in detention any longer."
The trial against them began in 2023 and is nearing completion.
All of them deny charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity before and during the 1998–1999 war.
Kurti has been criticized in the past for not speaking out for the former KLA leaders and for never visiting the four figures in The Hague.
But he said on Wednesday that he has worked "long and quietly" for their release.
"I have thought so since day one. We have worked long and hard on this issue, in silence, because often good work is done quietly. But sometimes the work that is not seen is not known," he wrote.
Kurti and his party, the Vetevendosje Movement, then in opposition, had opposed the establishment of this court in 2015 by the Kosovo Assembly.
In his Facebook post on Wednesday, Kurti also published a letter from 2022, in which he had asked the head of the Specialized Chambers, Ekaterina Trendafilova, for their release.
"I am making it public today for one reason only: because I believe it is right for them to return to their homes, to be close to their families, and to defend in freedom the just liberation war of Kosovo. Ms. Trendafilova's response two weeks after receiving the letter from me did not change anything. The requests presented were not resolved," Kurti added.
In his letter, Kurti had offered guarantees to Trendafilova that Kosovo authorities would supervise their house arrest. At the time, their trial had not yet begun.
The Kosovo Special Court is based in The Hague, Netherlands, and is composed of international judges and lawyers, having been established by the Kosovo Assembly in 2015, to try cases against former KLA members under Kosovo law.
She expects the trial against the former KLA leaders to be concluded by the end of December.
This month, former President Thaçi's defense is expected to conclude the case, with retired American General Wesley Clark as the final witness.
It is not clear when exactly Clark will take the defense witness stand, but, according to the defense, he has announced that he cannot begin testifying before November 18 or 19.
So far, former US Assistant Secretary of State James Rubin, legal advisor to the Kosovo delegation during the 1999 Rambouillet negotiations, Paul Williams, and former British diplomat John Stewart Duncan have testified in Thaçi's defense.
They all said in their testimonies that Thaçi had no authority over the KLA.
Thaçi was the political leader of the KLA before and during the 1998–1999 war, Veseli was the head of the intelligence service, Krasniqi was the spokesman, and Selimi was a member of the general staff.
The indictment against them includes charges of illegal detention, torture, murder, crimes against humanity, enforced disappearance and persecution of hundreds of civilians and persons who did not participate in the fighting.
These crimes allegedly occurred between March 1998 and September 1999 in various locations in Kosovo, but also in northern Albania.
According to the Specialist Chambers, Thaçi, Veseli, Krasniqi and Selimi bear personal criminal responsibility for these crimes, but they all deny guilt.
Defense lawyers have stated that the KLA would not have gained the support of the international community if there had been a criminal plan, as prosecutors claim.
According to them, the indictment is based on a selective misinterpretation of events. /REL/
