Kosovo parliament adopts declaration rejecting Hague verdict against former KLA leaders

Kosovo's parliament approved a declaration on Monday rejecting as unacceptable the first-instance verdict by the Specialist Chambers in The Hague against former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

Assembly demands coordinated legal and diplomatic response

The declaration was adopted with 99 votes in favor and no votes against or abstentions. In the text, members of parliament ask Kosovo institutions to undertake coordinated legal, institutional and diplomatic measures to protect and affirm what they call the historical truth about the KLA's war.

MPs explicitly rejected the conclusion that there had been a joint criminal intent among the former KLA leaders Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi. The parliamentary text was previously agreed among all Albanian parliamentary groups and MPs representing non-Serb communities; deputies from the Serb List did not attend the session.

The declaration also states that “in the period from 1998 to 1999 there existed a joint criminal enterprise to expel Albanians from Kosovo” and stresses that the truth about the liberation war, justice for the victims and their families, as well as the accused’s right to a fair trial, are matters of national interest which the Assembly will defend uncompromisingly.

Last week the Democratic Party of Kosovo proposed legislative changes intended to restrict the jurisdiction of the Specialist Chambers, shorten the temporal scope of cases, cap maximum sentences at 15 years, require that sentences be served in Kosovo and allow the president to grant pardons.

The Specialist Chambers in The Hague on 16 September this year sentenced Hashim Thaçi and Jakup Krasniqi to 25 years’ imprisonment, Kadri Veseli to 18 years and Rexhep Selimi to 13 years, finding them guilty of war crimes committed during the Kosovo war.

Photo: EPA-EFE/VALDRIN XHEMAJ