TIRANA, Sept. 16 /ATA/ – The Albanian Ambassadors Council (KASH) expressed deep disappointment and concern on Wednesday following the first-instance verdict by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague against four former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) leaders, saying Kosovo’s history and the liberation character of its war could not be rewritten.
In a statement, KASH raised concerns about the length of the proceedings, the defendants’ years-long detention, the proportionality of the sentences and the standards applied during the trial.
It stressed that the verdict should not be interpreted as a judgment against the people of Kosovo, the KLA or its war for freedom and independence.
KASH said the KLA’s war had been a “just and liberation war” against the repression, ethnic cleansing and systematic violence of Slobodan Milosevic’s regime. It said the conflict had received the support of the democratic world, while NATO’s intervention had ended a humanitarian tragedy that forced about one million Kosovo Albanians from their homes.
“The documented crimes of this regime – killings, massacres, forced expulsions and systematic persecution of the civilian population – cannot be relativised or equated with the freedom struggle of the people of Kosovo and its leaders,” the council said.
It said the verdict against the four former KLA leaders could not be interpreted as a judgment against the people of Kosovo or the KLA’s war.
“No court decision can tarnish the sacrifice of thousands of martyrs and victims, erase the historic right of the people of Kosovo to freedom, or overturn the fundamental distinction between aggressor and victim. The history of Kosovo and the liberation character of its war cannot be rewritten,” KASH said.
The council called on Kosovo’s international partners to maintain what it described as a clear and balanced position, saying respect for judicial proceedings should not lead to what it called a relativisation of Serbian aggression, a moral equivalence between the sides or a rewriting of the history of Kosovo’s liberation war.
KASH said it expected the appeals process to examine the evidence, legal conclusions, the determination of individual responsibility and the proportionality of the sentences with full impartiality and rigour, while ensuring the defendants’ right to a fair trial.
It noted that Wednesday’s verdict was a first-instance ruling and that legal remedies had not yet been exhausted.
At the same time, the council called on the international community to apply the same standards of justice to alleged mass crimes committed by Serbian state forces in Kosovo.
“Justice cannot be complete, equal and credible as long as many of those responsible for massacres, expulsions, sexual violence, destruction and enforced disappearances remain unpunished,” KASH said.
The council expressed solidarity with the people of Kosovo and the families of those convicted, calling for calm, unity, dignity and confidence in the legal remedies provided by law.
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