Special Court denies ex-KLA member request for release on bail

English

Gazeta Express

10/12/2020 9:27

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC) on Wednesday denied Hysni Gucati’s request to be released on bail pending his trial suspect for offences against the administration of justice, namely intimidation of witnesses, retaliation, and violation of secrecy of proceedings.

The KSC in a media statement said the Panel of the Court of Appeals Chamber of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers delivered its first interlocutory appeal decision regarding an appeal filed by Hysni Gucati against the Single Judge’s decisions in relation to the legality of his arrest and application for bail. In this first decision, the Court of Appeals Panel determined the standard of review to be applied to interlocutory appeals and the formal requirements to be respected on appeal.

“Applying this standard of review, the Court of Appeals Panel rejected Gucati’s appeal in its entirety. Although the Panel found that the arrest warrant was incorrectly based on Article 39(3) of the Law that pertains to the powers of the Pre-Trial Judge acting upon the filing of an indictment, for the reasons developed in the decision, it considered nevertheless that the Specialist Chambers’ legal framework confirms that the Single Judge had the power to issue an arrest warrant before the filing of an indictment,” according to the statement.

The Court of Appeals Panel further found that provisional release decisions are discretionary and that the Single Judge did not abuse his discretion in addressing the conditions proposed by Gucati in support of his application for bail. The Panel was of the view that Gucati failed to demonstrate that the Single Judge committed a discernible error in his assessment as to whether Gucati’s detention is necessary under Article 41(6) of the Law.

The Court of Appeals Panel underscored the importance of the principle of proportionality in the context of pre-trial detention but found that Gucati’s detention is still proportional at this early stage of the proceedings.

Following his arrest by the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office on 25 September 2020, Hysni Gucati, head of the Association of Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) Veterans was transferred to the Detention Facilities of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague. An arrest warrant was issued for him suspected of obstructing administration of justice, namely intimidation of witnesses, retaliation, and violation of secrecy of proceedings. Gucati in his appeal claimed that he was illegally arrested for alleged obstruction of justice after he received leaked documents from war crimes cases which he said were leaked documents of the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office (SPO) at the Hague tasked to investigate and prosecute alleged crimes of the KLA during and after the war in Kosovo in 1998-2000. /GazetaExpress/