In Pristina, officials from the Specialist Chambers based in The Hague raided the home of the former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), Sulejman Selimi, for several consecutive hours.
The Special Prosecutor’s Office did not provide details about the operation, while Artan Qerkini, Selimi’s lawyer, stated that the operation was conducted under the order of the pre-trial judge, who believed that there might be evidence in his house related to obstructing justice.
The Specialist Chambers did not disclose any details about the operation or about the notification that former the Deputy Prime Minister of Kosovo, Hajredin Kuçi, a member of the defense team of former parliamentary speaker Kadri Veseli, had also been “contacted”.
The Special Court, known as the Specialist Chambers, deals with allegations of war crimes committed by members of the former Kosovo Liberation Army.
Its establishment by the Kosovo Parliament in August 2015 followed allegations raised in the 2011 report prepared by the Council of Europe rapporteur Dick Marty, which contains accusations against former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army for abductions, mistreatment, extrajudicial killings, and in some cases, the forced removal of human organs and trafficking from Albania during and after the war in Kosovo.
However, this issue has not been included in any of the current indictments against former KLA members.
In December 2022, the Court sentenced former Kosovo Liberation Army member Sali Mustafa to 26 years in prison on charges of murder and torture in a pre-trial detention center during the war in Kosovo.
In early April of last year, the trial against former Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi and three former senior political officials, Jakup Krasniqi, Kadri Veseli, and Rexhep Selimi, all former high-ranking leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army, began on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. They are accused of persecution, imprisonment, other inhuman acts, torture, murder, and enforced disappearance.
At least four people were arrested during 2023 under suspicion of acts related to “obstructing justice”.
