The Hague Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia researcher, Nevenka Tromp, has assessed that no one can predict what the Special Court's decision will be against the former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army.
In an interview with KosovaPress, she also commented on the postponement of the deadline for announcing the final verdict.
Tromp, who is a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam, also talks about the petition with over 200 signatures of Albanians submitted today to the Special Court.
She says that this initiative by the Kosovo Liberation Army War Veterans Organization (OVL-UCK) does not aim to interfere with the verdict. However, the Croatian has doubts that this act could also have negative effects.
“Mr. Gucat’s initiative already says something: we are against this court, we are against this form of justice. So the goal is not to interfere with the verdict, but to delegitimize it, to delegitimize the court. Why? Because if the verdict is condemning, they can use all these arguments to say: we do not agree with this sentence, with this decision that found them guilty, because we have never believed that this court was an impartial institution….And you know what the double-edged sword of this is? The Kosovo Albanians who signed this petition, the 200 thousand Albanians who signed it, and not only this report, but also many people outside Kosovo had big questions about the way this court functions. But if these four defendants are found not guilty, then the Serbian side can say: they were found not guilty because the Albanians themselves said that this court is not a fair court, so the court released them because of the pressure that the judges "It feels like the outside world. So you see how complicated it can be. In the academic world we call this expressive justice or expressive dissonance," she says.
Based on legal practice, lecturer at the University of Amsterdam, Nevenka Tromp, has indicated that the three-month deadline may not be sufficient for the announcement of the decision.
The Special Court has confirmed today the extension of the deadline for the announcement of the verdict for the former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army by another 60 days.
The spokesperson for the Specialist Chambers in The Hague, Angela Griep, told KosovaPress that July 20 is not the date of the announcement of the verdict but the date that determines the extended deadline.
The Hague Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia researcher, Nevenka Tromp, mentions three possible scenarios for the verdict for the KLA four.
Chief Specialized Prosecutor Kimberly West has requested a sentence of 45 years for each of the former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army.
Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi delivered their closing arguments on February 18, once again pleading not guilty to all counts of the indictment. Their defense also denied the crimes alleged by the Specialized Prosecutor's Office.
The trial of the KLA foursome began on April 3, 2023 – almost three years after the indictment was confirmed, during which the former KLA leaders have been held in the detention center in The Hague.
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