Time for eULeX To prioriTize war crimes - Amnesty International ...

34
Kosovo: Time for EULEX to prioritize war crimes
Thirteen years since her abduction and murder, Petrija Piljević's killers have not been brought to justice. In
2010, her son’s complaint that UNMIK had failed to conduct an effective investigation into her abduction was
declared admissible by the Human Rights Advisory Panel, a body of independent leading international lawyers,
charged with reviewing alleged human rights violations by UNMIK. His complaint is being considered in 2012.
The HRAP does not have the powers to instigate a criminal investigation, but it has the power to call on UNMIK
to reopen the investigation. Petrija Piljević's sons are still waiting for justice.
In 2011, the HRAP also declared admissible more than 60 complaints by families of the missing, now living in
Serbia, on the basis that UNMIK had failed to properly investigate the abduction and subsequent death of their
relative, in violation of Article 2 of the ECHR. In the majority of these cases, the HRAP has also recognised that
the pain and suffering of the relatives caused by UNMIK’s failure to investigate these abductions, is a
violation of Article 3 of the ECHR, which prohibits torture and other ill-treatment or inhuman and degrading
behaviour. These families are still waiting for justice.
THE “MARTY REPORT”
“My 17-year-old son Ivan is missing; I am still searching for him. Imagine how I felt when I
heard about the ‘Yellow House’. It is driving me crazy, the ‘Yellow House’…” 92
Perhaps the most significant development to date, with respect to establishing the fate and
whereabouts of missing Serbs (as well as ethnic Albanians), abducted by the KLA, has been
generated by the “Marty Report”. While the press and media have focussed on one element
of the report – allegations of organ trafficking – for the families of missing Serbs (and
Albanians) and for human rights organizations, the report more significantly, has generated
the first comprehensive inquiry in Kosovo into the case of missing Serbs.
In December 2010, a report for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE)
by Swiss Senator Dick Marty alleged that Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi and other members of
the KLA were involved in 1999 in the abduction, torture, ill-treatment and murder of Serb
and Albanian civilians transferred to prison camps in Albania. In one of the camps, detainees
were allegedly murdered and their organs removed for trafficking. The report was approved in
December 2010 by the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee of the PACE, and
adopted by the PACE on 25 January 2011. 93
Some of the allegations in the Marty report were first made public in 2008, when Carla Del
Ponte, former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia, published her autobiography. 94 Later the same year, Human Rights Watch sent an
open Letter to Kosovar Authorities Calling for an Investigation into Serbs Missing Since
1999, calling for an immediate investigation to be opened. 95
EULEX opened a preliminary investigation into the allegations in the Marty report on 27
January 2011. This was shortly followed in June by the announcement that a Brussels-based
EULEX Task Force had been approved to conduct the investigation. On 29 August 2011
EULEX announced the appointment of a US citizen, John Clint Williamson, as Lead
Prosecutor for the Special Investigative Task Force; Williamson – who assumed his duties in
October - had been Head of the UNMIK Department of Justice from late 2001 to 2002, and
more recently a UN adviser on war crimes. 96 However in August it was reported that the
investigative team comprising 15-20 people - prosecutors, investigators and administrative
staff - was not complete; three posts in the SITF, including a Deputy Lead Prosecutor, were
Amnesty International April 2012 Index: EUR 70/004/2012