UN Urged to Probe Hague Tribunal Controversy
Balkan rights activists have asked the UN to investigate alleged political influences on recent Hague Tribunal acquittals after controversial allegations by one of the court’s judges.
Balkan rights activists have asked the UN to investigate alleged political influences on recent Hague Tribunal acquittals after controversial allegations by one of the court’s judges.
BH journalists from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Humanitarian Law Center, Humanitarian Law Center – Kosovo, Youth Initiative for Human Rights – Croatia and Youth Initiative for Human Rights – Serbia have sent a letter supported by more than 100 organizations and individuals from the region of the former Yugoslavia, relating the recent developments at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, for the attention of His Excellency, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations.
Mats Mattsson, Head of the Executive Division of EULEX, and Jarosava Novotna, Chief EULEX Prosecutor, visited the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) on June 25th, 2013. Sandra Orlović, the HLC Executive Director, met with the EULEX delegation on behalf of the Organization. The topics discussed in the meeting were related to the issues of missing persons and the prosecution of war crimes committed during and after the conflict in Kosovo.
After a retrial, the Higher Court in Belgrade again convicted Marko Kashnjeti on June 21st, 2013 to two years of imprisonment for a War Crime against a Civilian Population committed on June 14th, 1999 in Prizren. The Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) holds that the evidence presented in the trial does not point to the conclusion that Mark Kasnjeti is responsible for the crime he was charged with and that the judgment is marked by errors made by the court in the evaluation of evidence.
After a retrial, the Higher Court in Belgrade again convicted Marko Kashnjeti on June 21st, 2013 to two years of imprisonment for a War Crime against a Civilian Population committed on June 14th, 1999 in Prizren. The Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) holds that the evidence presented in the trial does not point to the conclusion that Mark Kasnjeti is responsible for the crime he was charged with and that the judgment is marked by errors made by the court in the evaluation of evidence.
Harry van Bommel, the member of the Dutch Parlament, has visited the Humanitarian Law Center’s office at the Hague Tribunal on June 21 and met with Nenad Golcevski, HLC’s development director and Mustafa Hadziibrahimovic, a member of the HLC’s team for transfer of Tribunal’s archive. As a member of the Socialist Party (Socialistische Partij) Mr. van Bommel has been an MP since 1998. He is also a member of the Dutch Parlament’s commissions for the foreign affairs and the European Union.
The court set up to make sure the worst Balkans war criminals faced justice is under unprecedented scrutiny.
A Serbian human rights group has filed war crimes charges against four serving police officers over the killings of nine Albanians in the Kosovo town of Vucitrn/Vushitrri in 1999.