\u201cWe, who lost our children during the war, continue to live with its consequences. So this court can\u2019t be acceptable to us,\u201d she says. \u201cFor us, the war never ended. It lives on within us. This court only deepens our pain, especially given that Serbia committed crimes in Kosovo. That is why NATO intervened. Despite what happens, nothing can bring our children back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than 27 years have passed since Berisha lost all five of her children: it was in April 1999. The house where they had all sought shelter was struck during a Serbian military attack. Berisha was severely wounded. Two days after the strike, she regained consciousness in a hospital in Albania and realized that all five of her children, Adelina, 9 years old, Njomza, 7 years old, Shkurtesa, 5 years old, Lezie, 2 years old, and six-month-old Elhame, had been killed. Berisha\u2019s sister, Zyrafete, endured the same tragedy: she lost her three children in the same attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just a week earlier, NATO had launched its air campaign to halt the atrocities being committed against civilians by the forces of Slobodan Milo\u0161evi\u0107, the then ruler of Serbia. Like thousands of other Kosovo Albanians, Berisha and her family had been displaced from their home and were searching for safety in another village, when the Serbs retaliated and they were hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite carrying the scars of one of the war\u2019s most devastating personal losses, Berisha was never given the opportunity to testify about what happened to her family. No legal process was ever initiated to assess Serbian responsibility for this massacre or any other one perpetrated in Kosovo. No one has been held responsible, even though in the high chain of command of the Serbian government, police and army leaders were sentenced by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now Berisha speaks ahead of the long-awaited verdict in the case against former Kosovo guerrilla leaders Hashim Tha\u00e7i, Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi<\/a>. Their trial started in April 2023 and has seen 130-plus witnesses testifying over the course of 227 hearings. 155 victims are part in the case. But for this bereaved mother, whose children were killed by Serbian forces, this trial offers \u201cno sense of closure\u201d. \u201cI can\u2019t call it justice. They [Hasim Thaci and other Kosovar guerilla leaders] fought for the freedom that we paid such a high price to achieve,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To many victims such as Berisha, the KSC has remained a controversial institution, one that has struggled to earn the trust of those who suffered most during the war.Located in The Hague, the Netherlands, and staffed by international judges and prosecutors, the court was established by the Kosovo Assembly in August 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Its creation followed a European Union (EU) investigation led to examine allegations made by Dick Marty in a 2010 report to the Council of Europe<\/a>, which accused former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) members of kidnapping, torturing, and murdering prisoners during and after the 1999 war to harvest and traffic their organs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Back then, on August 3rd<\/sup>, 2015, when Tha\u00e7i<\/a> called for a vote on the hybrid court, he said that the court would remove \u201cthe dark cloud\u201d hanging over Kosovo after Marty\u2019s report. \u201cIt will prove that our fight for liberty was right and pure,\u201d he said. Five years later, in 2020, he resigned as president of Kosovo to face accusations of war crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And more than a decade later, frustration with the court has been increasing in Kosovo, while it has significantly influenced and reshaped the country\u2019s political landscape. The KSC is seen by many as attacking the victims of the conflict and the Liberation army rather than the Serbian oppressors. The war left 13,000 people dead, the majority of whom were Kosovo Albanians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Gezim Visoka, a Kosovo-born professor of peace and conflict studies in the School of law and government in Dublin, Ireland, \u201cthe KSC has been a geopolitical instrument for disciplining elites, balancing guilt, and focusing on the negative aspects of the Kosovo liberation war\u201d. \u201cAnd the process has become very lengthy, expensive, and controversial,\u201d he tells Justice Info.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The court has faced longstanding challenges in the protection and relocation of witnesses<\/a> and their families. So far, there have been three cases concerning attempts to influence witnesses before the KSC, involving 10 accused persons including Tha\u00e7i. While five people have already been sentenced, the trial for obstruction of justice<\/a> of Hashim Tha\u00e7i, Hajredin Kuqi, Bashkim Smakaj, Isni Kilaj, and Fadil Fazliu is ongoing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In September 2021, confidential court documents were leaked to leaders of the War Veterans Association, who then provided the material to the media. The leaked documents contained the names and personal details of witnesses. Following the leak, several witnesses and their families were relocated. \u201cThose [obstruction of justice] cases demonstrate that relocation was an important step in keeping witnesses and victims safe,\u201d Angela Griep, a spokesperson for the KSC, tells Justice Info.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amer Alija, from the Pristina-based Humanitarian Law Centre<\/a>, which monitors war crimes trials, says that the document leaks and cases of witness tampering have given the court reason to believe that there is a real risk of witness interference. \u201cThese cases were then repeatedly used as an argument for strict security measures and detention,\u201d he says.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\t The defendants have also continuously complained about their conditions of detention and alleged violations of their rights. \u201cThe illegal surveillance and access to the accused\u2019s private discussions about his physical and mental health, and his most intimate exchanges with family was a violation of human rights,\u201d said Luka Mi\u0161eti\u0107, the lawyer of Tha\u00e7i, in a statement<\/a>. \u201cNo safeguards were put in place to ensure the integrity of the proceedings,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTo date, no trial panel has found that proceedings before the KSC have been unduly prolonged,\u201d Griep replies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alexander Heinze, a professor of criminal law, criminal procedure, and international law at the University of Bremen, points out to Justice Info that the Court\u2019s approach to the causation standard could serve as a textbook example. \u201cSentences in two cases were not bound by the law applicable in Kosovo at the time the crimes were committed,\u201d he says. And \u201cthe length of proceedings is a concern.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, Heinze notes that concerns regarding justice and the legitimacy of the KSC stem primarily from the creation of the KSC itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The witness and victim protection measures have made it almost impossible for the public to know who they are, and to learn their stories. \u201cIt is hard to say whether this court has provided justice to a victim,\u201d Visoka says. Heinze, however, points out that \u201ca court that chooses the safety of witnesses at the cost of public accessibility is making a defensible choice\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The KSC has only prosecuted Kosovars for crimes allegedly committed during and after the war in Kosovo, between February 1998 and December 2000. Due to its de facto<\/em> monoethnic mandate, the media in Kosovo have mostly spoken of the court with a voice of frustration and disbelief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For some journalists such as Xhorxhina Bami, who has consistently reported on the trials for the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), the court\u2019s visibility has been low because so much of its work has been conducted behind closed doors. \u201cMost hearings are closed, their transcripts are published weeks later, and they are often heavily redacted,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A large part of the evidence, especially in the war crimes case against Tha\u00e7i and others, has been redacted. The court has also received files from Serbia, which have never been disclosed neither. \u201cThe lack of transparency has reached very high levels,\u201d Bami adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Griep says the sheer amount of reporting on KSC cases, based on public hearings and public filings is actually \u201ca testament to this transparency\u201d. And to her, \u201cthe biggest obstacle in providing people in Kosovo with accurate information has been misinformation circulating in some media.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cNo sense of closure\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA geopolitical instrument for disciplining elites\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Defendants\u2019 rights trampled on<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Invisible witnesses and victims<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
No sympathy for the victims?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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