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Radio Free Europe
- September 27, 2026 11:50
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- Rasti i Ante Gotovinës po përmendet si pikë reference për apelin e Hashim Thaçit dhe tre ish-krerëve të tjerë të UÇK-së, ndonëse ekspertët thonë se mes tyre ka dallime thelbësore.
- Në rastin Gotovina, mbrojtja arriti të rrëzonte një hallkë kyç të aktgjykimit, duke çuar në përmbysjen e dënimit dhe shpalljen e tij të pafajshëm në apel.
- Avokatët dhe ekspertët që punuan në rastin Gotovina, thonë se një apel kërkon shqyrtim të aktgjykimit “hallkë pas hallke”, ekipe të specializuara dhe resurse të mjaftueshme për të identifikuar gabime në prova ose në arsyetimin juridik.
Dog PUNISHMENT for war crimes of former Kosovo Liberation Army leaders Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi, the "Ante Gotovina case" began to be mentioned by lawyers, commentators and the media in Kosovo as a point of reference for the appeals phase.
At first glance, the similarities are obvious.
The former Croatian general also received a severe sentence in the first instance, before the Appeals Chamber declared him innocent. The verdicts, in both cases, were met with objections and protest.
But what led Gotovina from conviction to innocence was a legal battle over the verdict itself.
And, at its center was a very concrete question: Where was the weak link?
From 24 years of imprisonment to innocence
On April 15, 2011, Ante Gotovina heard his sentence of 24 years in prison at the Hague Tribunal.
He was found guilty of crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war in connection with Operation Storm in 1995.
The court found that Gotovina and General Mladen Markac had participated in a joint criminal enterprise aimed at the permanent and forcible removal of the Serbian population from Krajina.
Markac was sentenced to 18 years in prison. The third defendant, Ivan Cermak, was acquitted.
The verdict sparked anger and distrust in Croatia, where the two generals were widely seen as heroes of the war for independence.
"A decision without evidence, purely political," said Danica Krivić, a pensioner from Zagreb, at the time.
But the battle that would change the outcome would not take place on the streets of the Croatian capital. It would take place within the verdict itself.
“The 200-meter standard”
When the defense appeared before the Appeals Chamber in May 2012, it focused on a very specific element: the so-called “200-meter standard.”
In the first instance, the judges had used this distance to assess the artillery attacks in Krajina.
Shots that fell more than 200 meters from an identified military target were used as evidence of unlawful attacks.
Payam Akhavan, then part of Gotovina's defense team, says that this was precisely where one of the crucial weaknesses of the verdict lay.
According to him, the 200-meter limit was not supported by evidence, but had become a key link in the reasoning linking the attacks to the joint criminal enterprise.
"There was a fixed, flawed premise that became the basis of the entire joint criminal enterprise theory. But the whole case was like a house of cards, and as soon as the '200 meters' letter was removed, the whole structure collapsed. Fortunately, everything ended well. The Appeals Chamber recognized that a trial panel cannot simply invent evidence," Akhavan tells Radio Free Europe's Expose program.
Gotovina and his defense team. The Hague, 2011.
The Appeals Chamber was unanimous that the 200-meter standard had been used incorrectly.
But, on the consequences of this mistake, the judges were divided.
By three votes to two, the majority concluded that, without that standard, the finding of unlawful artillery attacks did not stand. So did the finding of joint criminal enterprise.
On November 16, 2012, the convictions were overturned and Gotovina and Markac were found not guilty.
"This is our common victory. In the war we had 'Storm', and this was our legal 'storm'. We won and everything was concluded," Gotovina said after the verdict.
The verdict, link by link
After what Gotovina called a "victory," there were months of preparations to dissect the verdict and find the point where it could be challenged.
Akhavan says this required looking at evidence and the law from a new perspective.
"I think it is very important to look at the evidence and the law with a new eye. To examine link by link the chain of evidence and the legal reasoning on which the finding of joint criminal enterprise was based," he says.
In practice, seeing the issue with "new eyes" also meant expanding the team.
Tomisllav Kuzmanoviq, atëherë pjesë e mbrojtjes së Markaçit, thotë se për apel u angazhuan edhe dy juristë të rinj - Kai Ambos dhe John Jones - për ta analizuar aktgjykimin nga një kënd tjetër.
The Gotovina and Markac teams, meanwhile, coordinated strategy where their interests met.
“I still remember the conversation I had with [Gotovina’s lawyer] Lluka Misetic after the first instance decision, about the so-called 200-meter standard, which had appeared out of nowhere. We immediately understood that this was where we should start the appeal. We had common issues in the defense, but each team had its own approach. Each challenged the court’s findings in their own way, but our approaches complemented each other,” Kuzmanovic recalled to Exposé.
The argument did not remain solely in the hands of the lawyers.
The defense sought to test the 200-meter standard from a military perspective. One of the experts hired was Geoffrey Corn.
"From a military perspective, this standard was arbitrary. There is no military rule that any shot that falls outside a certain distance from the target is automatically considered illegal," Corn, now at the University of Texas School of Law, tells Expose.
What did the Croatian state do?
Building such an appeal required something else: resources.
After the conviction, the support of the Croatian state became clear publicly.
The then Prime Minister, Jadranka Kosor, called the finding of joint criminal enterprise unacceptable and said that the Government would use legal options to have it overturned on appeal.
The government also engaged the Croatian Academy of Legal Sciences for a study on this concept.
Radio Free Europe attempted to contact Kosor and Gotovina himself, but received no response.
The Minister of Justice during the key appeal period, Orsat Milenić, responded that he did not want to comment on this topic.
Marko Milanović, professor of Public International Law at the University of Reading, says that the Croatian state's support went beyond funding.
It included investigators and experts, but also access to state documents, including materials from the Brijuni meeting, where, just days before Operation Storm, the Croatian leadership discussed and finalized plans for it.
The transcript of that meeting became one of the key pieces of evidence in the Gotovina trial.
Milanović says the Croatian state also had a broader interest.
"They were defending a narrative, an official version of the truth. In the case of Croatia, it was the version of the truth of the Croatian political elites. So, it wasn't just the fate of those individuals that mattered, but also the cause as a whole," he tells Expose.
But state support and defense strategy were not the same thing.
Lawyers who worked on the case say that Croatia provided funding and resources, but that legal decisions were left to the defendant and his team.
"In a criminal trial, the accused is the one who decides. He must give instructions to the lawyer. And now, since 14 years have passed, I can say that in this respect there was no problem in the relationship between the defense team and General Gotovina," says Akhavan.
From Gotovina to Thaçi and others
Now, it is the turn of former KLA leaders: Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selim to appeal.
The four were convicted on September 16 of war crimes, with sentences ranging from 13 to 25 years in prison.
The court found that they had contributed to a joint criminal enterprise, while the defense warned that it would challenge the verdict.
In the debate about what might happen on appeal, the Gotovina case has become a point of reference.
But how far can this comparison go?
For Cornin, the distinction is essential.
“In the Gotovina case, the issue was not whether he was responsible for the actions of his subordinates. As the commander of the operation, this was taken for granted. The issue was whether their actions constituted violations of the law. With Thaçi it is different. It is not disputed that members of the KLA committed violations of international humanitarian law. The question is whether Thaçi is responsible for those violations,” says Corn.
This means that Gotovina's experience cannot be copied.
But, one lesson from it remains: the appeal must find the point where the evidence and legal reasoning fail.
In Gotovina, that point was the “200-meter rule.” In Thaçi and others, the defense must ask whether within the reasoning linking them to crimes through joint criminal enterprise, there is a link that is not supported by evidence or the law.
“It may be that a single, but crucial, premise is wrong, and its overthrow leads to the overturning of the entire finding of joint criminal enterprise. In some cases, it may be a factual finding that is not supported by the evidence; in other cases, it may be an error of law,” says Akhavan.
A team built for appeal
This is why Kuzmanovic sees the appeal phase as a separate job.
According to him, it requires a specially built team to dissect the verdict and identify errors that could affect the outcome.
“In my opinion, it is very important that they have strong appeal teams and sufficient support. I believe that Kosovo has allocated significant resources to the defense teams. This support should continue, and even increase, so that they have a real chance on appeal. They can also do what we have done: engage experts from abroad, for a different perspective and additional support. For us, this was very useful,” says Kuzmanović.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty asked to speak with Lluka Mishetiq, Thaçi's lawyer, who had also defended Gotovina on appeal, to understand what of that experience might be relevant to the phase that now awaits the defense of the KLA four.
But, Misetic said he does not plan to give interviews in the near future.
Radio Free Europe also asked the Kosovo Government what concrete steps it plans after the verdict, but received no response.
Prime Minister Albin Kurti, however, publicly announced support for the coming phase.
"The Government of the Republic of Kosovo is committed to providing support, in every way and with all the means at its disposal, with the aim of correcting the verdict of the Specialist Chambers against the former KLA leaders, which is legally and morally unjust and historically and factually incorrect," Kurti wrote on Facebook.
The Government did not clarify what this support specifically means.
But if the Gotovina case offers a lesson, it is not that a severe sentence is necessarily overturned on appeal.
It is that the appeal is won or lost within the verdict itself: on the evidence, the law, and the links that connect them.
Akhavan says this requires putting emotions aside and examining the verdict calmly and methodically, to build the strongest possible argument.
Because, as he says: "The game is not over yet."