New Kosovo Prosecutions ‘Offer Justice for Abducted Serbs’

This is hopefully a step towards justice for the families of up to 400 Kosovo Serbs believed to have been abducted by the KLA, and subsequently transferred to Albania, where they are alleged to have been killed,” said Sian Jones, Amnesty International’s researcher on Kosovo on Tuesday.The report published by the EU’s Special Investigative Task Force earlier on Tuesday said that unnamed “senior officials of the former Kosovo Liberation Army” will face indictments for crimes against humanity and other abuses committed after the 1999 conflict.“These individuals bear responsibility for a campaign of persecution that was directed against the ethnic Serb, Roma, and other minority populations of Kosovo and toward fellow Kosovo Albanians who they labelled either to be collaborators with Serbs or, more commonly, simply to have been political opponents of the KLA leadership,” Clint Williamson, the lead prosecutor with the task force, told a press conference in Brussels.According to the Amnesty International, the report “recognised the widespread and systematic nature of the abductions and murders, and assured that former senior KLA officials will be indicted for crimes against humanity”.However, the rights group noted that the EU task force “has been unable to issue indictments against the as-yet unnamed suspects, as the specialised court being established to try the suspects, outside of Kosovo, will not open until 2015”.The court will work under Kosovo law, but will be based in the Netherlands and have international judges.Although the Kosovo Assembly voted in April for the new court to be established, additional legal changes need to be made to put it in line with the constitution.Amnesty said this should be done quickly so prosecutions can go ahead.“Any further delay may well lead to impunity and the further intimidation of potential witnesses,” Jones said.