Reaction of the Council of Albanian Ambassadors: Deep concern over the Specialist Chambers’ judgment in The Hague

The announcement of the first-instance judgment by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, based in The Hague, against former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army has been met with deep concern by the Council of Albanian Ambassadors (KASH).

According to KASH, although it respects the principles of the rule of law, the independence of the courts and victims’ right to justice, this decision brings profound disappointment. The Council raises serious concerns about the excessive length of the proceedings, the defendants’ years-long pretrial detention, the relationship between the sentences and the crimes, and the criteria applied during the trial.

The Kosovo Liberation Army’s war, KASH recalls, was a just and liberating struggle against the oppression, ethnic cleansing and systematic violence of Slobodan Milošević’s regime. The democratic world supported this struggle, and NATO’s intervention brought an end to a humanitarian tragedy that had driven around one million Kosovo Albanians from their homes.

Milošević’s regime, through its state, military and police machinery, as well as its senior leaders, was tried and convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for crimes in Kosovo and elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia. The documented crimes of this regime, including killings, massacres, forced expulsions and the systematic persecution of civilians, cannot be relativized or equated with the Kosovo people’s liberation struggle and that of its leaders.

The judgment against the four former KLA leaders should not be viewed, and cannot be taken, as a condemnation of the people of Kosovo, the Kosovo Liberation Army or its struggle for freedom and independence. No judgment can diminish the sacrifice of thousands of martyrs and victims, undo the historical right of the people of Kosovo to freedom, or overturn the fundamental distinction between the aggressor and the victim. The history and liberating character of Kosovo’s war cannot be rewritten.

The Council of Albanian Ambassadors emphasizes that the initial international reactions have reaffirmed the importance of justice and accountability, while in Kosovo and the diaspora the decision has met with strong opposition and deep concern. Therefore, KASH calls on Kosovo’s international partners to adopt a clear and balanced position: respect for judicial processes must not turn into the minimization of Serbian aggression, the moral equivalence of the parties, or the rewriting of the history of Kosovo’s liberation war.

With regard to the appeals process, KASH expects the evidence, legal conclusions, manner of determining responsibility and proportionality of the sentences to be reviewed with complete impartiality and rigor, while ensuring the convicted individuals all the rights to a fair trial. The announced judgment remains a first-instance ruling, and legal remedies have not yet been exhausted.

At the same time, the Council of Albanian Ambassadors calls on the international community to apply the same standards of justice to the mass crimes committed by Serbian state forces in Kosovo. Justice cannot be complete, equal and credible as long as many of those responsible for massacres, expulsions, sexual violence, destruction and enforced disappearances remain unpunished.

The Council of Albanian Ambassadors expresses solidarity with the people of Kosovo and the families of those convicted, and calls for calm, unity, dignity and confidence in the legal avenues provided by law.