publicist Veton Surroi ka publikuar një listë prej 9 sugjerimesh se si duhet lexuar aktgjykimin ndaj katër ish-drejtuesve të lartë të Ushtrisë Çlirimtare të Kosovës.
Full release:
1. The conviction of four former KLA leaders — Hashim Thaçi, Jakup Krasniqi, Kadri Veseli, and Rexhep Selim — is not yet final. The appeal in the second instance will require serious legal work, based on analysis and opposition to the full verdict, not on emotions. The eventual guilt or innocence, as well as the final length of sentences, will not depend on protests, social networks, or political statements. They will be the product of a continuous and rational legal process.
2. The September 16 judgment made a fundamental difference by rejecting the Prosecution’s charge of crimes against humanity. The Court found that the criminal acts constituted a widespread and systematic attack, but that the Prosecution had not proven that this attack was directed against a civilian population as such. According to the Court, the victims were selected primarily on an individual basis.
3. The four convicted former KLA leaders are thus legally distinct from those convicted in the cases of Šainović et al. and Vlastimir Đorđević before the Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. In those cases, a state campaign directed against the Albanian civilian population was proven and the defendants were also convicted of crimes against humanity.
4. However, the first-instance sentences in the Shainovic et al. case ranged from 15 to 22 years in prison, while two of the former KLA leaders were sentenced to 25 years each. Even taking into account the differences between the cases, individual responsibility and different sentencing practices, this raises a serious question of proportionality.
5. Their acquittal on six counts of crimes against humanity places the verdict in a more just historical context. While the campaign of Serbian forces against the Albanian population of Kosovo has been legally defined as a crime against humanity, in the case of the four former KLA leaders the existence of a criminal attack directed against a civilian population as such was not proven. This conclusion places the verdict in the context of individual responsibility for war crimes. Neither the KLA nor Kosovo can bear this burden of guilt. The verdict does not treat the goal of Kosovo’s independence as criminal and emphasizes that this trial does not judge the legitimacy of the KLA or the struggle for independence.
6. The verdict is based on the important principle that the justice of the liberation cause does not automatically justify every action committed in its name. But, likewise, the conviction of individuals for criminal acts cannot be attributed to the KLA as a whole, alter its historical role in the liberation of the country, or tarnish the independence of Kosovo.
7. Kosovo should not fall into the trap of arguing that the Hague verdict condemns the KLA or an independent Kosovo. There is no conclusion in the verdict that assigns individual responsibility for crimes to the KLA as an organization or to Kosovo's quest for independence.
8. Bellum iustum — the KLA's just war, built on the popular movement against the occupation of Serbia and for the independence of Kosovo — has not been undone by this verdict as a historical and moral truth.
9. The verdict, in the end, has also individualized the victims. The victims are also part of this story, we will learn more about them from the full text of the verdict, in its definitive form.
