As the Kosovo Special Court delivers its verdict in the case against former President Hashim Thaçi and three other former KLA leaders, many Kosovars remain deeply skeptical of its role and legacy.
Sitting in the shade of a large oak tree in the courtyard of his home in the mountainous village of Rance, Isak Asllani speaks slowly, pausing for long moments between sentences. But when the Kosovo Specialist Chambers is mentioned, his voice hardens.
"This court is political created at Kosovo's expense. We will never accept it," he says.
In May 1998, when he decided to join the Kosovo Liberation Army, the ethnic Albanian, separatist guerilla group that fought for liberty from Yugoslav regime, was hoping for a better future for his seven children, who ranged between 11 months and 12 years old.
Soon he has to evacuate his family by tractor to what he believed was a safer place when it was struck by a bomb. He was seriously wounded and survived the attack, but none of the others did.
“I saw the pieces of their bodies flying and spread around a glade. What kind of justice can satisfy me or bring them back,” he says with eyes filled with tears.
They would not live to see months later in March 1999, NATO air campaign to halt the atrocities being committed against civilians by the forces of Slobodan Milosevic, the then ruler of Serbia.
Next day, on August 26, marks the 28th anniversary of their murder.
A court Kosovo struggles to accept
Speaking ahead of verdict by Kosovo Specialist Chambers the Kosovo reallocated court against Kosovo former President Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi, Asllani’s anger has become emblematic of a wider frustration in Kosovo.
The hybrid court was established in 2015 under intense international pressure following an explosive report by Council of Europe rapporteur Dick Marty alleging war crimes, including organ trafficking. In response, the EU established The Special Investigative Task Force concluded in 2014 that, while it found no evidence of organ trafficking, there was sufficient evidence to prosecute at least ten people for other alleged crimes.
For years, Thaçi, as Kosovo’s chief negotiator, in the EU mediated dialogue with Serbia had been negotiating under the pressure of a Council of Europe report that mentioned his name, as well as growing calls for the establishment of the hybrid court.
The 2020 indictment of Thaçi and three other KLA leaders for war crimes by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague marked a watershed moment for Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008, following the bloody dissolution of Yugoslavia.
“There is no evidence that they have responsibility for those crimes,” said Thaci’s lawyer, Luka Misetic in a statement in February.
Frustration with the court is growing in Kosovo, where many see it as targeting conflict victims and freedom fighters.
Gëzim Visoka, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Dublin City University in Ireland, pointed out that the case seems to imply that Kosovo Albanians should not have resisted the Milosevic regime. “They should not have taken up arms or used any means to pursue liberation,” he said.
“The moral standard applied would, in effect, disqualify any real-world liberation struggle from passing legal muster,” Visoka added
Close to his house, east of Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, alongside graves of his seven children, his wife, his mother, and two other family members, Asllani had placed also the destroyed tractor trailer as a dark reminder of the day he lost his family.
His anger is now evident as his indicted comrades await their verdicts. “With this court (KSC) hope for justice has evaporated,” Asllani said.
The limited jurisdiction of the court, especially in the face of voices that regard the court’s jurisdiction as unfair because it was limited to crimes allegedly committed by KLA members, while the other crimes by Serbian forces remained outside its mandate.
Agon Maliqi, a political analyst in Kosovo, points out that the indictment appears designed to target political figures rather than deliver justice.
"The core problem, he said, lies in how the indictment portrays the General Staff and the liberation war as criminal while attributing to the Staff powers it is difficult to believe it possessed. Perceptions of the court’s impartiality have also been undermined by the prosecution’s cooperation with Serbian institutions, which are seen as heirs to a genocidal state apparatus. As a result, much of the population views the court as an international effort to favor Serbia in its attempts to turn towards the West. The verdict is likely to reinforce the view that the Council of Europe report was a political construct driven by political intentions against Kosovo. The perpetrators of this construct must also be brought to justice, " he said.
The legacy of imposed justice
Alexander Heinze, Professor and Lecturer in Frankfurt and Göttingen, noted that the most controversial form of joint criminal enterprise involving special-intent crimes has been rendered moot as a trial matter rather than a jurisdictional issue. “The legal dispute is a proxy dispute for a larger debate about whom the KSC is created for: Kosovo or the international community, “he said.
Heinze said that some controversial issues that occurred during the KSC proceedings continue and have an impact on very concrete legal matters.
“No matter how well the KSC fulfilled its mandate, there might always remain the criticism of a too limited mandate at the outset, ” he said.
The defendants have repeatedly complained about the unreasonably prolonged detention, prison conditions, and alleged violations of their rights, particularly the excessive length of the trial proceedings.
Angela Griep a spokeswoamn for Specialist Chambers said no mechanism has found that proceedings before the KSC have been prolonged.
“Neither the Constitutional Court’s Specialist Chambers nor the KSC Ombudsperson has found human rights violations in the KSC proceedings,” she said.
The court has long faced challenges in protecting and relocating witnesses. Three cases involving alleged witness interference have been brought before the KSC, with 10 people accused, including Thaçi.
Heinze said that a structural problem was the documented scale of witness intimidation.
“It provided a structured pathway for admission of prior statements from witnesses, who fail to appear as a result of improper interference,” Heinze said.
Armend Bekaj, a Kosovo-born researcher at Uppsala University’s Department of Peace and Conflict Research (DPCR), said that, regardless of the wording of a guilty verdict, the vast majority of Kosovo’s population would not see it as justice.
” It is absolutely certain that Serbia would use a potential guilty verdict to embark on a new wave of reinvigorated political assaults upon Kosovo's existence,” he said.
Some political figures and members of the War Veterans organization have warned of unrest if the KLA leaders are convicted.
“If any of them are convicted, this would be an attempt to balance the crimes and rewrite the history of the victim and the aggressor,” says Abdyl Krasniqi, the brother of one of the accused, Jakup Krasniqi.
Many in Kosovo believe that the court will continue to be perceived as an international effort to make concessions to Serbia in its bid to bring the country closer to the West.
“Transitional justice, its true tenets of reaching closure and reconciliation between communities, would remain but a pitiful sacrificial lamb in the altar of this court,” Bekaj said.
Visoka said that the the message the court sends, beyond Kosovo, is clear. “Don’t resist oppression, don’t seek self-determination, don’t fight for your rights and if you do fight, don’t harm anyone. That is a great model for authoritarian regimes.”
In Rance village, Asllani sits within sight of the graves of the family he lost nearly three decades ago. For him, no judgment can answer the question that has remained since then. “Can any form of justice ever erase the war within you?”