Another 25 KLA Victims Want to Testify in Thaci Trial

Hashim Thaci (Photo: PrintScreen YouTube)

Another 25 victims of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), an Albanian paramilitary, stated that they wanted to testify in a trial of a former KLA commander, Hashim Thaci and another three persons accused before the Kosovo Specialist Chambers of crimes against Albanians, Serbs and Roma in Kosovo and Albania, from 1998 to 1999.

The Victims’ Participation Office of the Hague-based special tribunal, prosecuting the war crimes in Kosovo, suggested that 21 requests be accepted, says a document released on the court’s webpage. According to the same source, four requests should be dismissed, as there’s no evidence that the four victims had been exposed to the crimes named in the indictment, which is a chief requirement for the participation in the trial.

Of the 21 persons whose participation has been supported, six are direct victims, meaning that they had been exposed to illegal or arbitrary arrest, torture and cruel treatment by the KLA in one of the KLA detention centers listed in the indictment. The remaining 15 applicants are indirect victims, i.e. closely related to four detainees killed by the KLA, after they had been abducted, detained and tortured.

The choice of the victims to participate in the trial will be made by the pre-trial judge, Nicolas Guillou, who had accepted all previous proposals by the court office. Judge Guillou had already approved 32 requests for victims’ participation, but the application process is still open.