The Hague: Kosovo discriminates between war victims

At today's session, the Trial Panel called on Kosovo to introduce a different system for the reparation of victims of crimes under the jurisdiction of the Specialized Chambers, in order to achieve equal treatment for suspects or accused persons whose defense is financed from the budget of Kosovo and, on the other hand, victims of crimes under the jurisdiction of the Specialized Chambers for which nothing is allocted.

In a public session, the trial panel issued an order on reparations in the case against Salih Mustafa, who was found guilty on December 16, 2022 of war crimes of arbitrary deprivation of liberty, torture, and murder, and sentenced, to 26 years in prison.

The panel ordered Mustafa to pay a total of 207,000 euros in damages to the victims of the crimes for which he was convicted.

The panel concluded that the compensation awarded to each victim individually represents the most adequate type and modality of reparations and determined different sums ranging from 2,000 to 80,000 euros, which will be paid in the case of eight victims participating in the proceedings.

Those amounts were determined in accordance with the request of the victim's representative, which the trial panel considers justified and proportionate to the extent and degree of damage suffered by the victims.

The panel concluded that its jurisdiction, in this case, ends with the adoption of this order on reparations and therefore invited the president of the Specialized Chambers to designate a judicial authority that will be in charge of monitoring and supervising the implementation and execution of this order on reparations.

The panel noted that, although Mustafa was solely responsible for the payment of compensation, he currently did not have the means to fully execute that order, and therefore emphasized that other actors should be involved in the execution of the reparations order and that it was primarily Kosovo.

In this regard, the panel emphasized that the existing Crime Victim Compensation Program could serve as an alternative in the execution of reparations orders, although the maximum sums that could be obtained from the program were lower than the sums determined by the reparations order.

The Panel, therefore, called on Kosovo to introduce a new system for reparations for victims of crimes under the jurisdiction of the Specialized Chambers in order to achieve equal treatment for, on the one hand, suspects or accused before the Specialized Chambers, whose defense was financed from the budget of Kosovo, and on the other hand, the victims of criminal offenses under the jurisdiction of the Specialized Chambers, for which nothing was allocated.

The panel also noted that the provisions of the Kosovo laws on damages and injuries suffered in the context of the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo, concerned exclusively the victims of enemy forces, which, in the panel's opinion, discriminated between the victims of that war.