Hashim Thaci (Jerry Lampen via AP Photo, Pool)
A former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commander, Hashim Thaci's lawyers want an indictment by a Hague-based court set up in 2015 to try KLA crimes dismissed, because the charges were not based on a report by the Council of Europe's special rapporteur Dick Marty about atrocities and organ trafficking in Kosovo and Albania.
"None of the charges against Thaci can be linked to the Council of Europe's report "Inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo" compiled by Dick Marty," Thaci's lawyer David Hooper argues in a request published on the Kosovo Specialist Chambers website.
The defence lawyer wants the charges dropped because the court has no authority over crimes that haven't been mentioned in Marty's report, adding that the court's term in office has expired, as the court's inaugural act adopted by the Kosovo parliament in 2015 prescribed a five-year term for the Specialist Chambers.
Thaci, aged 52, was charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity against Albanians, Serbs and Roma in the guerilla army's 40 detention camps in Kosovo, and another two Albania, from March 1998 to September 1999.
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