• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Kosovo rebel veterans’ leaders deny charges over leaked witness data

October 7, 2021 by David Barret Leave a Comment

October 7, 2021

By Stephanie van den Berg

THE HAGUE (Reuters) -Leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) veterans’ association pleaded not guilty at a war crimes tribunal on Thursday to charges of obstruction and intimidation for allegedly revealing names of protected witnesses.

Prosecutors allege Hysni Gucati and Nasim Haradinaj, who run the association, gave Kosovo media and politicians confidential court documents last year that included names and personal data from witnesses involved in war crimes cases.

According to specialist prosecutor Jack Smith there is a “small but powerful group” in Kosovo that opposes the court and will do anything to push “a false narrative” that there were no KLA crimes during the 1998-99 conflict with Serbia.

“These accused are a part of this group that wants this court to go away at any cost,” Smith told judges.

Gucati and Haradinaj risk a fine and a jail sentence of up to 10 years if they are convicted.

“I am innocent, I have no connection to any of the points in the confirmed indictment,” Gucati said. Haradinaj also pleaded not guilty at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers tribunal.

The veterans’ association wields considerable influence in Kosovo, where many former KLA fighters are now in political positions and KLA veterans are celebrated as national heroes.

More than 13,000 people are believed to have died during the war, when Kosovo was still part of Serbia under the rule of late Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Fighting ended after NATO air strikes against Milosevic’s forces, and Kosovo is recognised as an independent country by the Unites States and the majority of European countries.

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers was set up in 2015 under pressure from the European Union and the United States specifically to try crimes committed by ex-rebels, but veterans’ supporters see it as unfair.

Witness intimidation has been a problem for local prosecutions of alleged KLA crimes in the past. It is one of the reasons the Kosovo Specialist Chambers is seated in The Hague and has international staff.

The trial of the KLA veterans’ leaders is the second trial that has opened before the Kosovo war crimes tribunal so far.

(Reporting by Stephanie van den Berg; Editing by Alison Williams and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

Source Link Kosovo rebel veterans’ leaders deny charges over leaked witness data

David Barret
David Barret

Related posts:

  1. Republican Cheney named as vice chair of U.S. House panel investigating Jan. 6 attack
  2. Point raises $46.5 million for its premium debit card
  3. Onin is trying to fix event planning by combining calendar and chat
  4. S&P 500 on track for worst day in four months

Filed Under: News

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

  • Meet Ned: The Lonely Lefty Snail Looking For Love
  • “America Will Lead The Next Giant Leap”: NASA Announces New Milestone In Hunt For Exoplanets
  • What Did Neanderthals Sound Like?
  • One Star System Could Soon Dazzle Us Twice With Nova And Supernova Explosions
  • Unethical Experiments: When Scientists Really Should Have Stopped What They Were Doing Immediately
  • The First Humans Were Hunted By Leopards And Weren’t The Apex Predators We Thought They Were
  • Earth’s Passage Through The Galaxy Might Be Written In Its Rocks
  • What Is An Einstein Cross – And Why Is The Latest One Such A Unique Find?
  • If We Found Life On Mars, What Would That Mean For The Fermi Paradox And The Great Filter?
  • The Longest Living Mammals Are Giants That Live Up To 200 Years In The Icy Arctic
  • Entirely New Virus Detected In Bat Urine, And It’s Only The 4th Of Its Kind Ever Isolated
  • The First Ever Full Asteroid History: From Its Doomed Discovery To Collecting Its Meteorites
  • World’s Oldest Pachycephalosaur Fossil Pushes Back These Dinosaurs’ Emergence By 15 Million Years
  • The Hole In The Ozone Layer Is Healing And On Track For Full Recovery In The 21st Century, Thanks To Science
  • First Sweet Potato Genome Reveals They’re Hybrids With A Puzzling Past And 6 Sets Of Chromosomes
  • Why Is The Top Of Canada So Sparsely Populated? Meet The “Canadian Shield”
  • Humans Are In The Middle Of “A Great Evolutionary Transition”, New Paper Claims
  • Why Do Some Toilets Have Two Flush Buttons?
  • 130-Year-Old Butter Additive Discovered In Danish Basement Contains Bacteria From The 1890s
  • Prehistoric Humans Made Necklaces From Marine Mollusk Fossils 20,000 Years Ago
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version