Lawyer Pallaska: Thaçi and others are being held in detention on suspicion

According to him, the Special Court, established by Kosovo itself, does not trust state institutions. In an interview with KosovaPress, the lawyer says that the trial against Thaçi and others is expected to begin at the end of this year, but this period still remains only a forecast.

Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi, from November 2020 are continuing to stay in the detention center in The Hague who are charged with war crimes and apart from statutory conferences, the trial has not yet begun.

Lawyer Dastid Pallaska says that during the past year the process has been accompanied by major procedural violations which have hampered the work of the defense.

“The procedure went badly because the process was accompanied by major procedural violations which have hampered not only our work but also hindered the realization of the rights of persons before this court. We have mainly dealt with preliminary motions where we have challenged the jurisdiction of this court in the sense that the jurisdiction as approved by the Assembly of Kosovo is extremely limited, so any criminal offense that is prosecuted there must be closely related. directly with Dick Marty’s allegations, namely the crimes he claims to have identified there. “While if you have seen the indictment, the indictment is extremely wide, it includes almost anything and in a way it loses the special effect of this body”, says Pallaska.

Thaçi’s lawyer says that there are no conditions for his detention.

According to him, although Thaçi and the others surrendered voluntarily, the treatment there is being done as if they had been arrested.

“Despite the fact that my client and most of those present have surrendered voluntarily, in our case former President Thaçi has waived his personal constitutional immunity that has personally protected him from arrest and detention, he is considered to have been arrested and treated there. as if it were some person caught in the act aiming to evade justice. On the other hand, there is no condition for his detention, despite the fact that he is being held there with assumptions, the hypothesis that he may influence any procedure, although so far no concrete evidence has been provided to justify this suspicion that he it can hinder the development of procedures in the way provided by law or to affect other forms in this procedure “, he says.

Despite the possibility of parole being opened, the defense requests were rejected and Thaçi and the others remained in custody by court decision.

“It was an unpleasant experience, the distrust is terrible, it does not correspond to the reality in Kosovo, the distrust not only to my client who has shown readiness so far, he has established the court himself, he has surrendered, he has waived his immunity from all positions, but also to the state of Kosovo itself. The biggest paradox we have seen, although it is very difficult to distinguish a paradox because there are paradoxes almost every day, is that the Kosovo Police is treated as if it were a private company that must provide guarantees for its will to fulfill or to carry out court orders. We know that the Kosovo Police is a public institution that has a legal and constitutional obligation to execute court orders “, says Pallaska.

According to him, if the legal conditions for parole are met, the capacities of the Kosovo Police can not be an excuse for someone not to be released on parole.

He adds that the state must provide capacity in order for the law to be implemented.

“Former President Thaçi also needed to give up some of his constitutional rights, for example with the monitoring system in a way, even the place where his parole was proposed in Kosovo was more like a prison, in terms of stricter supervision than a conventional house arrest. And normally in order to implement this proposed arrangement, former President Thaçi had to give up some of his constitutional rights, for example monitoring his movements inside, outside and so on, but even this was not sufficient, and this has indirectly proved that the whole discussion about the conditions is useless, it is meaningless, because the prejudices that exist towards Kosovo as a state, towards the capabilities of our law enforcement institutions, are the main reason why they are held there “, He says.

Pallaska cites cases of trials of former Serbian officers and officials who were tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and who were released on bail on the basis of guarantees from the Serbian Police, although the same, he adds, was part of active in the crimes that were the subject of the indictment at the time.

While he finds it absurd that now a court that is part of the Kosovo system is not trusting the police of this country which is considered a model and a reliable partner by the internationals.

“It is totally an indictment or a case that has deviations from reality, selective selection out of context of some events that have resulted in a logical discrepancy. People who have little memory in the last 20 years can not relate what is alleged to have happened there and I really think it is probably even the weakest subject that has existed in all this history we have had here, even in the jurisprudence of UNMIK, be it the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, then EULEX and so on. In fact, most of the allegations have only been dropped by these courts, as we know Mr. Haradinaj has been released, Mr. Limaj has been released, now how is it possible to prove at the level of the area commander that there is no basis for guilt and to claim that in “above the level of responsibility,” he says.

Pallaska says that the number of witnesses proposed by the prosecution is unmanageable, adding that based on this, it is estimated that only the first instance will be completed in five and a half years.

“We have an unprecedented regime of witness protection, of editing information not only for the general public but also in relation to the defense and the accused there, edits of a banal nature, it is not even known when, who, to whom, what he did “Every aspect of a claim is edited so that no one can defend themselves against an unknown accusation,” says Pallaska.

Lawyer Pallaska says that the prosecution has filed an indictment without being fully prepared, which, according to him, is a lack of seriousness on their part.

“The prosecution has submitted its indictment for more than a year and a half now, it has been confirmed for more than a year, while the investigations are still ongoing. Who investigates an indictment that he is convinced is sufficient to be submitted to the court. This is the best indication that the prosecution has been completely unprepared and the filing of the indictment, the beginning of this case, has probably been influenced by cases that are not of a legal nature because otherwise a good lawyer, whoever he is, on either side who does work, on the prosecution side or on the defense side, never submits something to the court of which he is not even convinced, and the best indication that you are convinced of what you have submitted to the court is that it is the best you have ever had. “And if someone has submitted something unfinished, it shows that it was a semi-finished product”, he says.

Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Rexhep Selimi and Jakup Krasniqi have been detained in The Hague since November 2020. In their first appearances in the Specialized Chambers in The Hague, they have pleaded not guilty./KosovaPress/

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