After more than three years of trial, the Special Court in The Hague is expected to announce today at 10:00 the verdict against former KLA leaders Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi.
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The decision will be announced by Trial Panel II, composed of three voting judges and one reserve judge. The panel is headed by American Charles L. Smith III, who has a long career in the American judicial system and has served for years as a judge in the state of Iowa.
He has also been an EULEX judge in Kosovo, including at the country’s Supreme Court, and in the Kosovo Specialist Chambers he is precisely the one presiding over the trial panel in this case.
A member of the panel is also the German judge Christoph Barthe, who has extensive experience in criminal and international justice.
He has served as a public prosecutor at the Federal Court of Justice in Germany, where he has also dealt with war crimes and genocide cases, and has been part of the panel that has examined the evidence and testimony throughout the process.
The third voting member is Swiss Guénaël Mettraux, whose career is closely tied to international criminal law.
He has worked on war crimes cases, has had experience as a defense lawyer and advisor before several international courts, has served in structures of international justice, and is a professor of international criminal law.
As reserve judge has been appointed Irishman Fergal Gaynor, who has long experience in international justice and has worked on war crimes cases.
He has served in proceedings before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and in this process holds the role of reserve judge of the trial panel.
