Xhorxhina BamiPristinaBIRNDecember 2, 202218:47KLA Veterans’ Organisation leaders Hysni Gucati and Nasim Haradinaj appealed to be released of all charges of misusing documents leaked from the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in the Hague.
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Hysni Gucati and Nasim Haradinaj in court. Photos: EPA-EFE/PIROSCHKA VAN DE WOUW/POOL.
The former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, War Veterans’ Organization, asked the appeals judges panel at the Specialist Chambers of Kosovo in the Hague to be released of all charges by clarifying the case of the leaked documents two years ago.
“We have not committed any crime and have not violated the law, it was others who brought us the documents to the office. No one has done any investigation regarding those people. We are not to blame for these leaks. I ask this body to release us,” Hysni Gucati told the court on Friday.
“As a fighter for freedom, as an invalid of the liberation war, fate kept me alive quite by chance. It is said that chance is the king of the world. By imprisoning me, the Special Prosecution’s Office violated all my human rights and freedoms,” Gucati added.
In May, Gucati and Haradinaj were found guilty of obstruction of justice, intimidation and the unauthorised revelation of court information and personal information about protected witnesses in war crimes cases.
They were each sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison, with the sentence to take into account the time they had spent in detention, from September 2020. They were also fined 100 euros each.
The deputy leader of the veterans’ organization, Nasim Haradinaj, told the court that throughout the trial there had been a tendency from the SPO to twist the truth, “trying to hide its mistakes”. Haradinaj demanded clarification of the whole case and justice from the court, “without prejudices, without anime and political nuances”.
Prosecutor Alex Whiting told the Appeals Panel to uphold the current sentences. According to him, there is no doubt that the former heads of the Veterans Organization committed the crimes they were accused of.
“The accused claim that they have been treated unfairly in the court proceedings, nothing could be further from the truth, there is no question that the accused committed the crimes they are accused of and that they had full opportunity to object the case presented by the prosecution,” Whiting said on Friday.
The verdict against Gucati and Haradinaj was the first to be handed down by the Specialist Chambers. They were charged after they received batches of legal documents leaked from the Specialist Chambers, which contained confidential information about protected witnesses in cases against KLA ex-guerrillas, and urged the media in Kosovo to publish extracts from them. They both pleaded not guilty.
The Kosovo Specialist Chambers were set up to try former KLA fighters for wartime and post-war crimes from 1998 to 2000, including murder, torture and illegal detentions. Witness protection has been a key concern, after incidents of witness-tampering at previous trials of KLA commanders.
After May’s verdict was handed down, the acting leader of the KLA War Veterans’ Organisation, Faton Klinaku, told media that “this Special Court is a political court”.
“We have not recognised and will not recognise this court. We will hinder it from functioning in any way we can because it does not prosecute war crimes but prosecutes Albanians,” Klinaku said.
Source link: balkaninsight.com
