Opinion: An Unscrupulous and Offensive Celebration May 24 - June 6, 2013 Issue No. 112 www.prishtinainsight.com Price € 1 NEWS Emails to Belgrade Mayor Arrested Spark Spying For Alleged Allegations War Crimes Government insists Deputy > page 3 Minister did not reveal any sensitive information about Kosovo Security Force as Self-Determination MPs call BUSINESS for an investigation. Sugar King Eyes page 3 Brezovica’s Powder > page 4 NEWS Kosovo’s Tough Smoking Law Draws Protests > page 6 PROFILE The Jackal Who Repented Witnesses Change > page 8 Stories in KLA Jail Trials INSIDE PRISHTINA Denials of abuse at KLA detention centres muddle prosecution cases in high-profile war crimes trials. University Hires an electric prod,” Bollofci testified have taken revenge.” Both cases are being handled by Bus Company With By Florent Spahija in 2003, during the first trial of the Bollofci is among four prosecu- EU rule of law mission, EULEX, Troubled Past so-called Llapi Group case. tion witnesses in high-profile war prosecutors and involve charges of t the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, detention cen- Bollofci gave a very different crimes retrials happening in abuse and torture at KLA deten- > page 22 Atre in Llapashtica, the beat- account this past April, when he Kosovo now, the Llapi Group and tion centres during the 1998-9 war. ings were commonplace. At least, testified at the suspects’ retrial. Klecka cases, who have contradict- Among the accused are prominent that’s what Rushid Bollofci told “I haven’t seen or heard of beat- ed statements and testimony given lawmakers in the ruling UN police and an investigative ings,” Bollofci said. years earlier. Three of those wit- Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, judge in 2002 and 2003. Confronted in court regarding nesses, who were all previously including MP Fatmir Limaj, in the Kosovo’s only English-language “Nazif Mehmeti beat me up. He his previous testimony, Bollofci anonymous protected witnesses, Klecka case and MP Latif Gashi, newspaper is available: beat me with a baton for an hour. said, “This is not true, because if including Bollofci, have also pub- in the Llapi case. After a 30-minute break, he beat he [Mehmeti] had beaten me up, licly identified themselves by Delivered to me again with a wooden baton and even if he were a dragon, I would name. continues page 2 Your Door Prevalla - The From Newsstands across Kosovo Cost of Luxury nvironmental inspectors Sent To suspended construction Your Inbox ETuesday of seven homes being built at a housing develop- From ment at Prevalla Mountain, some 30 kilometres from our partners Prizren... feature page 12-13 see page 16 for more info is supported by: 2 May 24 - June 6, 2013 news Witnesses Change Stories in KLA Jail Trials Editor’s Word from page 1 In Cronyism The four witnesses offered a variety of explanations for their They Trust contradictory testimony, includ- ing mistranslations, pressure from UN investigators and bad t’s no secret that government jobs memories. are a favoured currency for EULEX prosecutor Charles Ipoliticians in Kosovo. Hardaway, in his closing argu- Countless government employees ments in the Llapi case this are politically connected. Even the week, attempted to downplay the chief of the civil service is part of significance of the new contra- the governing body of the dictory statements. Democratic Party of Kosovo, the “The words they spoke at a PDK. time closest to the experience While patronage exists through- and before the corrupting effect out the world, it is particularly per- of time, circumstances and vasive here in Kosovo. A new report other influences took their toll, by Democracy for Development, A are the best guides to fully estab- Class of Its Own: Patronage and its lish the factual reality of what impact on Social Mobility in Kosovo, occurred at Llapashtica,” he attempts to measure the extent per- said. sonal and political patronage. While prosecutors haven’t On the report’s Patronage Index, suggested that the changes in using a scale of 0 to 1.0, Kosovo reg- witness statements resulted isters 0.928, the highest among the 15 from intimidation, war-crimes European democracies studied. cases have seen numerous By comparison, Greece, which has instances of it. well-documented patronage prob- A article in the New Yorker lems, registers 0.62 on the index. In magazine in May about war the UK, it is just 0.09. crimes cases in Kosovo, entitled Illustration/A. Visti “Bring Up the Bodies”, explored This means that government widespread witness intimida- accounts of the murders of accounts in 2002, spoke of being In April this year, he declared, employees who got their jobs based tion in war crimes cases heard Serbian prisoners at Klecka, beaten by KLA fighters and wit- “Fatmir Limaj had no power in on merit are in the minority in at the Hague Tribunal against had previously told prosecutors nessing beatings at the the prison of Klecka and didn’t Kosovo. Limaj and former Kosovo Prime about multiple attempts on his Llapashtica prison. In the cur- have the competence to release Looking more broadly, the report Minister Ramush Haradinjaj, life. rent trial, he said otherwise, and the prisoners.” is just one indictment of how con- now an MP. In June 2009, he was shot and one of his earlier statements Another witness who has nections and cronyism frequently Limaj, in an interview with wounded at his house in was ruled inadmissible. remained anonymous, Witness trump common sense. the New Yorker, denied abusing Prizren, and prior to that, he He blamed faulty translations C, testified in the trial via a Consider the unfolding scandal any prisoners. When asked if he found a grenade in his car in — interviews were done in video link April 30 and contra- involving the Kosovo Security Force. got subordinates to scare wit- July 2007, as well as receiving Serbian, which he said he didn’t dicted his earlier testimony. By the KSF’s admission, emails nesses into recanting, Limaj other threats to himself and his know well — and pressure from He claimed he hadn’t been found on the computer of Deputy responded, “I was in The Hague. family. UN police. beaten or poorly treated at Minister Slavisa Filipovic showed If someone here did something The witnesses who’ve “They came to me many Klecka, as he’d said before. He that he informed the Democratic which was wrong, this person changed their stories in the times. They saw that I was also denied seeing four inmates Party in Serbia about KSF unit posi- Klecka and Llapi case did not scared and told me that I’d be that he knew at Klecka. has to respond.” tions. offer accounts as damning as given a visa and compensation At the end of his testimony, Hilmi Zhitia, a former chief Filipovic’s involvement isn’t clear, Zogaj’s, but they nevertheless for what had happened to me,” Witness C declared that he state prosecutor who’s now a but the ministry’s has insisted that supported prosecutors’ asser- Avdyli said. “Because I was wished that the defendants private defence attorney, told he himself did not reveal sensitive tions about abuses at KLA young, I was deceived by their would be freed as soon as possi- Prishtina Insight that Kosovo information, as has Filipovic. detention facilities. claims.” ble. witnesses frequently find them- The discovery was also kept from Kosovo defence attorney Five other protected witness- selves under pressure. the public for more than a year and a “Witnesses in high-profile Rame Gashi, who isn’t involved Different stories in es remain and are expected to half, prompting the opposition Self- cases can change their state- in the Klecka or Llapi trials, testify. Klecka: Determination party to call for ments because of pressure, said contradictory statements can muddle cases. Filipovic to be investigated in con- threats and blackmails against While the Llapi case heard its Concerns over witnesses: “Changing statements is a nection with possible spying. the witness’s children and fami- closing statements this week, widespread phenomenon since The ability of EULEX to pro- There is no conclusive evidence ly,” said Zhitia, who is not the testimony continues in the the end of the war in Kosovo,” tect witnesses came under fire in that Filipovic was spying for involved with the Klecka or Klecka case. Two Klecka wit- Gashi said. “The judge is chal- the wake of the death of Witness Belgrade. But it is remarkable that Llapi cases. nesses have thus far contradict- Agim Zogaj, a former KLA lenged in recognising which of X, Zogaj. the case was kept under wraps for so ed earlier statements. prison guard known as “Witness the statements offers the truth EULEX did not respond to long and that Filipovic has been Lawyer Sokol Dobruna was a X”, was the star witness in the or comes close to the truth. This Prishtina Insight’s questions given the benefit of the doubt. There protected witness for the prose- Klecka trial until he died in an becomes a difficult task espe- about the protection of witnesses also doesn’t seem to have been a cution, known as Witness A, but apparent suicide in Germany in cially when some other evidence in the Klecka and Llapi cases. proper investigation. The KSF’s he testified publicly on April 23. 2011. related to the case is lacking.” In January, EULEX signed a oversight committee apparently was “I do not accept being a wit- Zogaj, who gave detailed Avdyl Avdyli, in multiple witness protection collaboration not even told about it. ness for the prosecution, howev- agreement with Kosovo’s The most logical answer is connec- er this doesn’t mean that I will Ministry of Internal Affairs in tions.