PRISTINA – The parliament of Kosovo adopted a declaration today concerning the verdict of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague against four former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The declaration was adopted with 99 votes in favor, with no votes against and no abstentions.
The Assembly declared the Specialist Chambers’ finding that Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi, and Jakup Krasniqi had a common criminal purpose to be “unacceptable.” MPs expressed “deep concern” over the first-instance verdict.
They called for a unified state legal, institutional, and diplomatic strategy and demanded that the Specialist Chambers themselves respect their mandate “in accordance with the will of the Assembly”, KoSSev reports.
Today’s vote represents the strongest institutional expression of opposition to the verdict in Kosovo to date.
The declaration was agreed upon by the Self-Determination Movement, the Democratic Party of Kosovo, the Democratic League of Kosovo, the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, and the Multietnic Parliamentary Group, which consists of eight deputies from non-majority communities who act together in parliament.
According to Radio Free Europe, the Democratic Party of Kosovo last week also proposed amendments to the Assembly to the draft law concerning what the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, aiming to limit the jurisdiction of the Specialist Chambers to the criminal offenses mentioned in the 2011 report of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which, among other things, addressed allegations of organ trafficking following the war in Kosovo.
It proposes changing the period covered by the Specialist Chambers from January 1998 to December 2000 to the period from July 1, 1999, to December 2000.
The PDK also proposes that the maximum sentence the Court may impose be 15 years in prison.
The Alliance has supported this initiative, while the ruling Self-Determination Movement (LVV) said it would initially examine it from a legal perspective, while the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) still has no official position on the matter.
