Former KIA director sentenced to 4 years and 8 months in prison in retrial

The Basic Court in Pristina has sentenced the former head of the KIA, Driton Gashi, to 4 years and eight months in prison for abuse of office. Gashi was also banned from holding public office for 4 years, after serving his prison sentence. Gashi was sentenced to the same term in the first trial.

The Basic Court in Pristina on Tuesday sentenced Driton Gashi, the former director general of the Kosovo Intelligence Agency, to 4 years and eight months in prison for abuse of official duty, also in a retrial. 

In the second verdict in the case of the illegal deportation of six Turkish citizens, the court imposed the same sentence on Gashi as in 2023. 

This time, he was also given an additional sentence.

"The accused DG has been found guilty and sentenced to a prison sentence of 4 years and 8 months (four years and eight months), which sentence will not be executed until the verdict becomes final. The court also assigns the accused DG an additional sentence, a ban for 4 (four) years from exercising a function in public administration or functions in public services after serving the prison sentence," the verdict of the Basic Court in Pristina states.

In announcing the verdict, the trial panel found that Driton Gashi exceeded his powers.

"...using his official duty or authority, he exceeded his powers, by forcibly deporting from Kosovo and handing them over to the Turkish authorities, citizens of the Republic of Turkey, CO, YK, KD, HHD and ME, who had legal residence permits and the right to work in Kosovo, and OK, who had applied for a residence permit in Kosovo, for which the procedure had not been completed, in such a way that the accused DG had filed with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, requests dated 23.03.2018 and dated 28.03.2018, for the revocation of residence permits for Turkish citizens CO, YK, KD, HHD and ME and the refusal to grant a permit to OK, on ​​the grounds that they pose a risk to national security, facts which have not been proven at all in the procedure implemented under the AKI law," the verdict states.

The judgment is not final and the parties may appeal it within 30 days.

In this case, the prosecution claims that security assessments were issued based on no evidence that the six Turkish citizens were dangerous to the security of Kosovo, without being such. 

According to the prosecution, KIA employees were directly involved in the deportation of Turkish citizens, who were considered by the Turkish authorities to be part of the Feto organization, for which they later faced justice in Turkey.

At the time the Turkish citizens were expelled, the opposition blamed former President Hashim Thaçi for the scandal that caused international outrage. However, the indictment of the Special Prosecution Office states, among other things, that the accused carried out the actions without informing the president and former Prime Minister at the time, Ramush Haradinaj. 
After his dismissal from the KIA, Gashi was appointed secretary to the presidency when it was led by Hashim Thaçi.
In the announcement of the decision in 2023, the former director of the Department for Citizenship, Asylum and Migration at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Valon Ramadani, and the former director of the Directorate for Migration and Foreigners within the Border Police, Rrahman Sylejmani, were acquitted of the charges.

Later, the Appeals Court returned for retrial only point 1 of the enacting clause relating to Gashi.

The indictment was filed on March 29, 2018, following a large-scale operation by the Kosovo Police and the Kosovo Intelligence Agency, which resulted in the arrest of six Turkish citizens.

Their expulsion is said to have been carried out through a coordinated action between intelligence services from Turkey and Kosovo.

The arrest and deportation were preceded by the revocation of their residence permits, an action the court later ruled was unlawful.

Of the five Turkish citizens, three of them had permanent residence permits, namely Mustafa Erdem, Yusuf Karabina, Karhaman Demirez, while two of them, Hasan Hysein Demir and Cihan Ozkan, had temporary permits.

The families of six Turkish citizens filed a lawsuit against the Kosovo institutions in 2018 for the arbitrary arrest and detention of their family members.

Some of the family members have sought asylum in Kosovo and some others have left for European countries.
Six Turkish citizens arrested in Kosovo and deported to Turkey in March 2018 were sentenced by courts there to a total of 56 years and 7 and a half months in prison.

Courts in Turkey sentenced most of them to 8 years in prison, while one, Mustafa Erdem, general director of the "Gulistan" institution in Kosovo, was sentenced to 15 years on June 5.

"Mehmet Akif" schools in Kosovo belong to the "Gulistan" Educational Institution.

"Gulistan" has kindergartens, preschool institutions, primary and secondary schools throughout Kosovo.
They are believed to be inspired by the Hizmet Movement of Turkish religious cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed for orchestrating the 2016 coup attempt in Turkey.

Supporters of Gulen, who died in October 2024, are considered terrorists by Turkey, while the Hizmet Movement, which has millions of supporters, has been declared terrorist in Turkey.