In an interview for\nKosovaPress, lawyer Kehoe talks about the prolongation of the process against\nthe former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army and, according to him, the\nintention of the prosecution that this trial last longer than that of\nMilosevic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He says the indictment\nis against the KLA and the prosecution is trying to call it a secret\norganization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kehoe invites the\ninternational community to turn their eyes to the Special Court and, as he\nsays, see what is happening there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also considers that\nthere should be greater attention of the institutions and society in Kosovo for\nthe processes in the Special Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Full interview:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n KosovaPress: The Kosovo\ncitizens do not understand why the judicial process against the KLA leaders has\nnot yet started?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Gregory Kehoe:<\/em> The process is not starting because the\nprosecutor hasn’t been ready to start. If you recall the prosecutor in November\nof 2020 said they’d be ready to go to trial in six months that’s almost two\nyears ago since that he made that comment, and they’re still not ready. They\nhave not finished their disclosures, they haven’t done everything that’s\nsupposed to do, one of the rules. That’s why this has been delayed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n KosovaPress: Is the defense ready for the trial\nto begin?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Gregory Kehoe:<\/em> We’ll be ready to go as soon as they finish\ngiving to us everything we’re entitled to get. This supposed to give us all of\nthe evidence they going to produce, all of the exculpatory evidence, they\nhaven’t. <\/p>\n\n\n\n KosovaPress: It has been said that the trial\nagainst the KLA leaders may last longer than the trial against Milosevic. Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Gregory Kehoe:<\/em> That’s a very good question. I don’t think that’s\na question that anybody on the defense side can answer it? It shouldn’t be a\ntrial that lasts longer than the Milosevic trial, but that’s what the\nprosecutor is going to try to advance. And what do I think that means? I think\nthat they’re going to take every incident that took place in Kosovo in 1998,\nand 1999 and under a \u201cjoint criminal enterprise\u201d theory blame these four\ngentlemen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n KosovaPress: Why is the prosecution hiding\nexculpatory documents, the list of witnesses, editing materials. Is this a\nstrategy to delay the court process?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Gregory Kehoe:<\/em> They are arguing that they’re doing it for the safety of these\nwitnesses. That’s the argument that they make, but there has to be some\naccountability for telling the defense, what these witnesses are going to say,\nand who these witnesses are. That’s what I was arguing today in court, that’s\ncrucial. So, they want us make concessions about agreements on facts, on law,\netc., we can’t make those agreements until they give us all the evidence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n KosovaPress: The prosecutor in Thursday’s\nsession compared the KLA leaders to Serbian criminals. Can such a comparison be\nmade?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Gregory Kehoe:<\/em> There’s no comparison. They were talking that they filed a document\ncalling the KLA some secret organization. It was not some secret organization.\nIt was an organization trying to liberate the Kosovar Albanians, that’s what it\nhas been, that’s what it always been. But if you look at what they’re doing in\nthe indictment, and if you look at what they filed, they are squarely aiming at\nthe KLA as an organization involved in criminal activity. When in fact what it\nwas trying to do was liberate the Kosovo Albanians in Kosovo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n KosovaPress: In addition to the legal battle,\nshould Kosovo be proactive in diplomacy as well?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Gregory Kehoe:<\/em> At the end of the day, you have to win in the courtroom, you have to\npresent your case in the courtroom. That’s where that’s going to be won and\nlost. I invite everybody throughout the International Community to look at\nwhat’s going on in this court, and ask themselves, whether or not it’s been\nfair. My client and the other three gentlemen have been in custody since\nNovember of 2020, telling the court at the time that they were going to be in\ntrial and six months. Well, here we are coming on two years, and we’ll probably\nnot going to have a trial in the immediate future. But I invite anybody to look\nat how this court has conducted itself, and ask themselves, is this fair. <\/p>\n\n\n\n KosovaPress: Should\nthe Court reject the documents coming from Serbia?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Gregory Kehoe:<\/em> I think so, because obviously documents that are coming from Serbia are\nquestionable. Serbia has historically been involved in false flag operations,\nhave been involved in fabricating evidence, have been involved in fabricating\nwitnesses. So, the argument that we have made is that we’re entitled to know\nwhere these evidences come from, and to question who wrote this document, when\nthis document was written, and how you in Serbia got control of this document. <\/p>\n\n\n\n KosovaPress: The\nprosecution has said that the KLA was a secret and non-state actor. Can it be\ntaken as an indictment against the entire KLA?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Gregory Kehoe<\/em>: Of course it is. That’s exactly what I was arguing today in the\ncourtroom. It’s an incitement to the entire KLA. The KLA was a force that was\ntrying to liberate and protect the Kosovo Albanians from what was happening\nfrom the Serb forces, plain and simple. That’s what they did. The SPO was to\nturn into something nefarious and bad. It was not, it was an army of\nliberation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n KosovaPress: The prosecution has said that the\nvictims have been waiting for 20 years to tell their stories in court. What do\nyou think about this?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Gregory Kehoe:<\/em> It is a proposition with no factual support, EULEX, UNMIK, ICTY, local\ncourts in Prishtina. Some of these witnesses have testified seven times in\nseven different proceedings. Some of these victims four or five times. So, to\nsay that they’ve been waiting for 20 years is just absolutely not true, and not\naccurate. And also, it wasn’t because of these four gentlemen that they waited\n20 years. It is not their fault that the SPO and the KSC took 20 years to get\nto this place. But they are paying a price for that, and they sit in jail for\nalmost two years now, in a position that I don’t believe is fair, and I don’t\nthink any objective minded person would think is fair. <\/p>\n\n\n\n KosovaPress: Does\nthe Kosovar institutions and society need to pay more attention to what is\nhappening here in The Hague?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Gregory Kehoe:<\/em> Absolutely, because this is a Kosovo process,\nand the people in Kosovo want to ensure that any process is fair. This court\nmay be sitting in The Hague but it is a Kosovo court, and do the people in\nKosovo want a court that is unfair and is not transparent, and possibly unjust.\nNo, they don’t. So, should they examine what’s going on here? Should they look\nand see how business is being conducted in this court? Absolutely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The beginning of the judicial process against Tha\u00e7i and others is being delayed because the prosecution is not providing the defense with all the exculpatory evidence, says the lawyer of former president Hashim Tha\u00e7i, Gregory Kehoe. He considers that the court should reject the documents that the Specialist Prosecutor\u2019s Office receives from Serbia, while emphasizing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":51377,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[303,307,306,298,296],"tags":[2956,381,780],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51376"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51376"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51378,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51376\/revisions\/51378"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosovapress.com\/eng\/admin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}