Calls against trial of former KLA leaders reach Strasbourg

2025-11-16 15:02:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

After protests in several different cities in Europe, complaints against the trial of former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army have now been directed to Strasbourg, France, before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

There, the KLA War Veterans Organization announced that it had submitted 285 letters on behalf of each member of the Council of Europe Assembly, with their concerns regarding the process at the Special Court.

The purpose of the protest, called by the categories that emerged from the KLA war, is to express dissatisfaction with the trial of its former superiors, Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi, at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague.

The trial against Thaçi, Veseli, Krasniqi and Selim began in 2023 and is nearing completion. All of them deny charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In a letter addressed to the members of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, the chairman of the OVL-UCK, Hysni Gucati, expressed deep concerns about the way the trial against former KLA leaders is being conducted in The Hague.

He stressed that the 2020 indictments present the KLA structure as a "joint criminal enterprise", which according to him constitutes an indirect attempt to criminalize the Kosovo liberation war, with serious historical and political consequences.

In concluding the letter, Gucati called on member states to take these concerns into account and communicate them to relevant state institutions and foreign ministries, in order to ensure a fair, balanced and just approach to judicial processes related to Kosovo.

Before Strasbourg, similar protests were held in Tirana, The Hague, and Pristina.

The protest in Strasbourg was said by the organizers to bring Albanians together "where the unjust saga of our history began."

A 2010 report, drafted by then-Swiss senator Dick Marty and adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, alleged that leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army were involved in organ trafficking during the 1998-99 war.

This, in 2015, led to the formation of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers to investigate alleged crimes by KLA members against ethnic minorities and political rivals.

The Hague Trial

The trial of the four former KLA superiors began in 2023, three years after they were arrested and taken into custody at the Kosovo court in The Hague.

Now, more than two years later, their trial is nearing its conclusion, as the defense of former Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi has called its witnesses.

Testifying in defense in September were former US Assistant Secretary of State James Rubin, legal advisor to the Kosovo delegation during the 1999 Rambouillet negotiations, Paul Williams, US special envoy during the Kosovo war, Chris Hill, and former British diplomat John Stewart Duncan.

They all said in their testimonies that Thaçi had no authority over the KLA.

The Special Court expects the trial against former KLA leaders to be concluded by the end of December.

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