- Title: KOSOVO/ALBANIA: Kosovo parliament votes for a new war crimes court
- Date: 23rd April 2014
- Summary: PRISTINA, KOSOVO (APRIL 23, 2014) (REUTERS) KOSOVO PARLIAMENT IN SESSION GOVERNMENT MEMBERS / PARLIAMENT SPEAKER MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT LOOKING AT PROPOSED NEW WAR CRIMES LAW DOCUMENTS VARIOUS PARLIAMENT IN SESSION (SOUNDBITE) (Albanian) KOSOVO PRIME MINISTER, HASHIM THACI, SAYING: "The request of the international community made to Kosovo for establishing a special court treating possible accusations that will derive from the investigations of a new special task force established by the European Union to address claims from the report of Dick Marty is the biggest humiliation and injustice for the state of Kosovo and Kosovo society." MP'S LOOKING AT PROPOSED NEW WAR CRIMES LAW DOCUMENTS (SOUNDBITE) (Albanian) KOSOVO PRIME MINISTER, HASHIM THACI, SAYING: "The possible refusal of establishing this court from Kosovo's parliament will not only enforce the voices that say Kosovo is preventing the verification of the claims from the report, but it will also have huge consequences for Kosovo in the international arena." THACI LEAVING THE STAGE PARLIAMENT PREPARING TO VOTE MP'S VOTES SCREEN SHOWING 89 "YES" VOTES, 22 "NO" VOTES AND 2 "ABSTAINS"
- Embargoed: 8th May 2014 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Kosovo, Albania
- City:
- Country: Kosovo Albania
- Topics: Conflict,Politics
- Reuters ID: LVAAJQG5AAFP12BUCSE3RSC3NNL0
- Story Text: Kosovo's parliament approved on Wednesday (April 23) an EU-backed special court to try ethnic Albanian ex-guerrillas accused of harvesting organs from Serbs captured in the 1998-99 Kosovo war.
Eighty-nine deputies in the 120-seat parliament voted in favour of creating the court, although Prime Minister Hashim Thaci called it "humiliation and injustice" for the former Serbian province.
The allegations surfaced in a 2011 report by Council of Europe rapporteur Dick Marty, which said the Albanian guerrillas fighting a war of independence from Serbia had smuggled the bodies of Serbs into Albania and removed their organs for sale.
Marty explicitly mentioned Thaci and other high-profile officials from the ruling Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) as the leaders of a group that committed alleged crimes.
Thaci, who was the political chief of the former Kosovo Liberation Army, has rejected the allegations as an attempt to tarnish KLA's reputation. On Wednesday, he said the international community was forcing Kosovo to make a very difficult decision but there was no other way.
"The request of the international community made to Kosovo for establishing a special court treating possible accusations that will derive from the investigations of a new special task force established by the European Union to address claims from the report of Dick Marty is the biggest humiliation and injustice for the state of Kosovo and Kosovo society," he told members of parliament before the vote.
"The possible refusal of establishing this court from Kosovo's parliament will not only enforce the voices that say Kosovo is preventing the verification of the claims from the report, but it will also have huge consequences for Kosovo in the international arena,"
Thaci said.
Marty's report said most of the alleged crimes occurred after June 1999, when NATO's bombing campaign forced Belgrade to end the war and withdraw Serb forces from Kosovo.
U.S. prosecutor John Clint Williamson is investigating the allegations on behalf of the European Union, which has a mission in Kosovo to oversee major war crimes and corruption cases. Williamson is expected to wrap up his work within months.
The court will operate under Kosovo laws, but prosecutors and judges will be international. It will have one seat in Kosovo and another abroad, possibly in the Netherlands, which will deal with protected witnesses.
So far, local efforts to investigate alleged war crimes by guerrillas have run up against widespread intimidation in the small country, where clan loyalties run deep and former KLA rebels are lionised.
In a book titled "The Hunt: Me and War Criminals" and published in 2008, former United Nations War Crimes Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said her team had investigated reports that around 300 Serbs held in Albania had had organs removed in a so-called "Yellow House", apparently for trafficking.
An estimated 10,000 people died during the 1998-99 war, the great majority of them ethnic Albanians. About 1,700 people are still missing. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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