Kosovo Commander Limaj ‘Responsible for Prisoner Abuse’

As the trial of former Kosovo Liberation Army commander and current ruling party MP Limaj reaches its end, the prosecution in its final statement on Wednesday insisted that the politician had been responsible for violations at the Klecka jail during the late 1990s conflict.“Mr. Limaj remains the ultimate authority in the Klecka prison,” said the EU rule-of-law mission, EULEX prosecutor in the case, Maurizio Salustro.Salustro said that the prosecution had presented “all necessary evidence” to prove that Limaj and the nine other ex-KLA fighters also on trial were guilty of war crimes against civilians at the jail.According to the indictment, Limaj and the others “violated the bodily integrity and health of an unspecified number of Serb civilians and Serb prisoners of war”.Albanian civilians suspected of collaboration with the Serbian regime, Serbian civilians and Serbian police and military personnel were allegedly detained at Klecka, which according to the indictment also served as a detention centre for KLA soldiers investigated or sentenced for disciplinary offences. “Fatmir Limaj and the other defendants were aware of and contributed to helping keep prisoners in inhuman conditions,” the prosecutor said.Salustro’s final statement was based mainly on the diaries and statements of the main witness in the case, Agim Zogaj, known as ‘Witness X’.Zogaj was a guard at the Klecka prison but was found dead in a park in Germany in September 2011.“Agim Zogaj was and still is a credible and trustworthy source of evidence,” Salustro insisted.But Limaj’s defence lawyer, Karim Khan, said his client was innocent.“Any suggestion whatsoever that Fatmir Limaj was responsible for the detention centre or that he ordered or participated in any kind of crimes there is massively disputed,” he said in his final statement.He also questioned the admissibility of Witness X’s testimony and diaries, describing them as “unreliable” and “invented”.“Despite years of investigations, a trial and a retrial, there is no other witness except Zogaj who said that Fatmir Limaj mistreated or killed anyone,” Khan said.He insisted that Limaj was actually in Albania in April 1999 when he was alleged to have committed the crimes at Klecka – an alibi described by Salustro as “false and fabricated”.Khan also asked the court to “take into account the decision of the original trial chamber in the case”.Limaj was initially acquitted of the charges in May last year but the prosecution successfully appealed against the verdict and the case was sent for a retrial.Salustro complained that some witnesses had retracted their testimony against Limaj, suggesting that they could have been intimidated.“All the witnesses who came to testify before the court [at the retrial] retracted their statements. This happened for two reasons: either they changed their mind or someone else convinced them,” the prosecutor said.But defence lawyer Khan dismissed the suggestion.“It is very easy for the prosecution to simply stress - without evidence - there has been intimidation of witnesses, but based on what evidence?” he asked.In another previous trial at the Hague Tribunal in 2005, Limaj was acquitted of war crimes against Serbs and Albanians suspected of collaborating with Serbia during the Kosovo war and returned home to a hero’s welcome.