Kosovo War crimes witness intimidation and deaths

Former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci's defence lawyer Gregory Kehoe told the Kosovo Specialist Chambers at a status conference in the trial on Tuesday "there is no tribunal that has put measures" in place for witness protection like the ones being imposed at his client's trial in The Hague.

The leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army's War Veterans Organization, Hysni Gucati, on trial for war crimes before the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in the Hague, told the court he had been "set a trap" by leaked documents. 

The appeals chamber at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague on Wednesday rejected ex-President Hashim Thaci's plea for conditional release from pre-trial detention because there is still a risk that he might abscond.

Hysni Gucati and Nasim Haradinaj went on trial at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague on Thursday, charged with obstruction of justice and witness intimidation after they received leaked documents from war crimes case files and urged media to publish confidential information from the documents in September 2020.

The indictment claims that in the months prior to the leak, the two men made statements calling witnesses who collaborated with the Specialist Chambers "liars, collaborators, and traitors" in an attempt to "undermine and obstruct" the court.

In his second day of testimony at the trial of Salih Mustafa at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague, a protected witness codenamed 3593 spoke about the conditions in which he was held at a Kosovo Liberation Army detention centre, and said he deserves compensation.

Malcolm Simmons, a former head judge for the EU rule-of-law mission in Kosovo, EULEX told the Kosovo parliamentary commission on legislation on Monday that the mission prioritised putting prominent wartime figures on trial despite having little evidence, and failed to protect witnesses and deliver justice.

Trendafilova urged European nations to consider "comprehensive cooperation agreements" so witnesses and their families can be relocated to Western Europe.

"Without these agreements, it will be very difficult if not impossible in some cases to ensure that testimony can be given freely and without any fear," she said.

"I plead not guilty and I am completely not guilty," Hysni Gucati, the leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army War Veterans' Organisation, told the pre-trial judge during his initial appearance at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague on Friday.

He and others were held by the KLA in the mountains of northern Albania until June 1999. After the war officially ended, he and three other detainees were brought to a building in Prizren in Kosovo. A week later, he managed to escape.