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In the period from September until December 2008, the Humanitarian Law Center – Kosovo (HLC-Kosovo) conducted a research on the implementation of the Law on the Promotion and Protection of Rights of Communities and Their Members in the Republic of Kosovo, with special focus on the creation of the Consultative Council for Communities within the Kosovo President’s Cabinet. This law was passed on 13 March 2008 and entered into force on 15 June 2008, while the decree of the President of Kosovo, on establishment of the Consultative Council, was made on 15 September 2008.... >>
HLC-Kosovo is the only nongovernmental organization monitoring trials of war crimes and ethnically motivated criminal offences in Kosovo. In 2007, HLC-Kosovo monitored 117 main hearings in 21 cases before municipal and district courts, as well as four cases before the Supreme Court of Kosovo. The persons examined in these [monitored] cases included 119 witnesses (two of whom were protected witnesses) and five ballistic experts and neuropsychiatrists. In all cases the indictments were brought and represented by international prosecutors. All the chamber presidents are international judges, with local judges serving as trial chamber members.... >>
In the period following the toppling of Slobodan Milošević, the transitional government supported domestic war crimes trials, but it soon became clear that serious impediments existed. Police was not willing to share its data on war crimes perpetrators with prosecutors, primarily because most of them belonged to the police.... >>
Every government assumes political responsibility for the deeds and misdeeds of its
predecessor, and every nation for the deeds and misdeeds of the past.
Hannah Arendt, ''Eichmann in Jerusalem''
HLC Kosovo / Kosovo Memory Book /
 
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HLC researches war crimes and human rights violations in Kosovo in order to prevent manipulation of the number of victims, to build historical memory and to educate future generations about the legacy of the past.

Estimates by several independent sources say that some 8,000-10,000 Albanians were killed and 3,500 disappeared during the conflict in Kosovo. Also, some 2,000 - 2,500 Serbs, Roma, Bosniaks and ‘disloyal’ Albanians are believed to have been killed, with some 1,300 missing, according to estimates released in December 2000. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) documentation lists 2,047 people [belonging to all ethnic communities] as still missing.

Research in Kosovo is conducted by 10 researchers and in Serbia by one. They take statements from witnesses, family members and other persons in possession of information about the fate of the victims. These statements and other documents relating to the victims are analyzed by eight researchers/analysts, who use this material to compile victim records arranged according to time of incident, place of incident and source.

In 2007, HLC took statements from 2,783 witnesses and relatives of killed and missing persons in Kosovo. On the basis of these statements HLC was able to register 4,694 persons who were killed or disappeared from January 1998 to December 2000.

During the same period, HLC in Serbia interviewed 113 witnesses and family members living in Serbia. The statements were used to document the fate of 185 victims: 178 Serbs (133 civilians, 43 soldiers and two policemen), one Albanian (civilian), one Roma (civilian), two Bosniaks (civilians), two Montenegrins (civilians) and one Turk (civilian). Besides interviewing witnesses and family members HLC in Serbia gathered other documents about deaths and disappearances in Kosovo including transcripts from the Slobodan Milošević, Fatmir Limaj and Ramush Haradinaj trials before the ICTY, transcripts from the trials of Serbian MUP members before the War Crimes Chamber for crimes committed in Kosovo, books, death certificates, gravestone inscriptions, etc.

From the start of the project on 1 October 2005 to 31 December 2007 HLC registered 11,984 victims by name. In 2007 alone, it identified 3,193 victims who had not previously figured in the War Crimes Database. These victims include 2,275 Albanians, 624 Serbs, 43 Roma, 11 Bosniaks, seven Turks, five Montenegrins, four Hungarians, three Macedonians, three Egyptians, one Russian and one Montenegrin, the ethnicity of 333 victims not having been established. During the same period, HLC gathered additional data about 5,927 victims from the list of 11,984 who had been registered before 2007.

On 1 September 2007 the researchers/analysts began making brief records about killed, abducted and missing persons according to date, location and source of information. Every record contains the victim’s particulars, a factual description of the incident and the source. The records are based on witness and family member statements and other relevant documents about killings and disappearances in Kosovo.

By the end of December 2007, the researchers/analysts written a total of 1,128 narrative summaries documenting the fates of 2,336 victims or 19.49 per cent of the total registered [11,984]. In 107 of the records there is mention of 66 mass incidents involving 876 victims. Most of these victims were killed or disappeared between 24 March and 15 June 1999 while the Serbian police and army were present in Kosovo.

The names of victims about whom HLC has comprehensive personal data and information about the circumstances in which each victim was killed or was forcibly disappeared can be found at: List of victims with comprehensive data.

On the List of victims with incomplete data HLC lists the victims about whom it has incomplete data. Some personal data, or data concerning the circumstances in which the victim was killed or was forcibly disappeared is still required.

If you have any information about the victims that appear on either of these lists please contact us.