Former Kosovo Liberation Army fighters Haxhi Shala and Sabit Januzi have admitted charges of witness intimidation and obstruction of justice in war crimes proceedings, Kosovo's Specialist Prosecution announced.
Perparim Isufi, December 17, 2024
Haxhi Shala in court on December 13, 2023. Photo: Kosovo Specialist Chambers/Livestream.
Kosovo’s Hague-based Specialist Prosecution Office, SPO, announced on Tuesday that two defendants, Haxhi Shala and Sabit Januzi, both wartime fighters for the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, had concluded plea agreements admitting their guilt over witness intimidation and justice obstruction charges.
“It is testament to the strength of our investigations into intimidation and obstruction-of-justice matters that the office was in a position to conclude these agreements,” Kimberly West, Specialist Prosecutor, said.
In a press release issued after the announcement, the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, where war crimes proceedings are being held, said that “each plea agreement is based on an ‘agreed basis of facts’ in which the accused acknowledge that certain facts laid out in the indictment would be proven beyond a reasonable doubt and are true and correct”.
It is not clear in which trial the men committed the witness intimidation and justice obstruction offences.
The court said that a plea agreement for a third defendant in the case, Ismet Bahtijari, has not yet been made public.
Sabit Januzi in court on October 9, 2023. Photo: Kosovo Specialist Chambers/YouTube.
Shala is accused on three counts of attempting to obstruct official persons in performing official duties and intimidation during criminal proceedings, between at least April 5 and 12, 2023.
According to the indictment, Shala, Bahtijari and Januzi assisted each other and others to intimidate an unnamed witness.
Shala is accused of attempting to “use serious threat, or any other means of compulsion, a promise of a gift or any other form of benefit, to induce another person, Witness 1, to refrain from making a statement or to make a false statement or to otherwise fail to state true information to the police, a prosecutor or a judge, when such information relates to obstruction of criminal proceedings”.
The SPO claims that, on April 5 this year, “at Shala’s direction”, in a separate case, Bahtjari approached the unnamed witness to withdraw their testimony.
On April 12, again “at Shala’s direction”, in a separate case, Januzi approached the same witness to reiterate “the offer that Shala and unnamed others would help Witness 1 if he agreed to withdraw his testimony”.
The Specialist Chambers were set up in 2015 to try former KLA fighters for crimes committed during and immediately after the Kosovo war, including crimes against civilians and political killings.
The court was set up in The Hague due to concerns the Kosovo justice system would be unable to try former guerrillas after previous cases were marred by widespread witness intimidation.
The SPO pledged on Tuesday to maintain obstruction-of-justice investigations to ensure the integrity of proceedings at the Specialist Chambers.
“The SPO will continue to both vigorously pursue all those who seek to interfere with the administration of justice and stand up for victims and witnesses in Kosovo,” West said.
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