Specialized councils in The Hague have extended the detention of former KLA leaders Hashim Thaci and Kadri Veselji, accused of war crimes in Kosovo and Albania, for another two months.
In the court decision, it was stated that the trial panel once again established that there is a reasonable suspicion that Thaci and Veselji committed the criminal acts listed in the indictment and that there was a risk that they could disrupt the work of the court, influence the witnesses or repeat the crime if they were released from custody.
The risk of escape of the accused was rejected by the Council as a basis for prolonging detention.
As in the previous 14 decisions on the extension of custody, the judges found that Thaci, even before his arrest, in the fall of 2020, tried to undermine the court and that he offered privileges to persons invited by the Prosecutor’s Office.
In the decision, the Council emphasized, among other things, that it was established that Thaci had recently passed on information obtained during the testimony of protected witnesses to visitors while in court custody.
As for Veselji, the judges indicated that he, like Thaci, continues to play a significant role in Kosovo based on his previous positions and that while he was head of the intelligence service, service agents were involved in witness intimidation.
The council assessed that Veselji could disclose confidential information from custody.
Thaci and Veselji have been in judicial custody in Scheveningen since their arrest in November 2020. They are being tried together with Redzep Seljimi and Jakup Krasnici. The indictment charges Thaci, Veselji, Seljimi and Krasnici with crimes committed in 42 illegal KLA detention centers in Kosovo and Albania against at least 407 detainees, of whom at least 98 were killed, from March 1998 to September 1999.
