Kosovo’s president, Justina Shiroka-Pula, held her first coordination meeting with the heads of key institutions on Thursday. The meeting was attended by parliamentary speaker Albulena Haxhiu, Prime Minister Albin Kurti, and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Diaspora Glauk Konjufca.
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The president’s office said participants discussed recent developments, the situation in the country and issues of importance to state institutions. One of the main topics was the creation of a Working Group on the State Strategy for the Appeal of Former KLA Leaders, which will develop an institutional approach to the proceedings in The Hague. The meeting was presented as part of regular coordination among the highest state institutions, but no details were provided about the group’s membership or its timetable.
The initiative comes a month after the Specialist Chambers in The Hague delivered their judgment against Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi. The trial panel found them criminally responsible for war crimes involving the arbitrary detention of 385 people, the cruel treatment of 49 people, the torture of 303 people and the unlawful killing of 96 people. They were acquitted of crimes against humanity because the prosecution did not prove beyond reasonable doubt that there had been a widespread or systematic attack against the civilian population.
Thaçi and Krasniqi were each sentenced to 25 years in prison, Veseli to 18 years and Selimi to 13 years, a total of 81 years. Time spent in pretrial detention counts toward their sentences. All four have been held in pretrial detention in The Hague since November 2020.
After the verdict was announced, Kurti called for agreement on a state strategy to assist the defense teams during the appeal and include action on the diplomatic front. He described the judgment as unjust.
The judgment is not yet final, and the defense teams have announced plans to appeal. The Specialist Chambers’ rules give the parties 60 days from the notice of appeal to file their briefs; when an appeal concerns only the sentence, the deadline is 30 days. An appeal may be based on an error of law that invalidates the judgment, an error of fact that has resulted in a miscarriage of justice, or an error in sentencing. Thaçi’s defense team has warned that the process could take years.
Shiroka-Pula took office only a few days ago, amid political tensions. She was elected with 81 votes in a session that continued late into the night, shortly before the constitutional deadline after which the country would have faced early elections. Immediately before her election, lawmakers passed a law limiting the powers of the Specialist Chambers, while thousands of protesters outside parliament demanded its passage.
Her candidacy was made possible by an agreement between Vetëvendosje and the PDK, which also included limiting the powers of the court in The Hague. Under the PDK’s initiative, the Specialist Chambers’ mandate should cover only the crimes mentioned in Dick Marty’s report. The initiative also calls for the war crimes for which the former KLA leaders were convicted to be tried in Kosovo under international monitoring.
Following Shiroka-Pula’s election, Kurti said the institutions would work together to support the former KLA leaders’ appeal. Thursday’s meeting at the president’s office is seen as the first concrete step in that direction. Shiroka-Pula is a professor of economics; she has headed the Kosovo Academy of Sciences and Arts and served as economy minister from 2008 to 2011.
