The Troubled Trial of Kosovo’s ‘Drenica Group’

A protest against the indictment in 2013. Photo: BIRN.

The trial of the ex-KLA fighters known as the ‘Drenica Group’, which ended on Wednesday with 11 convictions, ran into problems from the start when a major demonstration was staged in Pristina by thousands of people angered by the war veterans’ arrest in 2013.

The trial ran into further turbulence in 2014, when three of the defendants escaped custody for a few days in protest at a prison transfer.

The defendants were all former members of a KLA operational group based in the Drenica region in central Kosovo. They fought for the independence of Kosovo from Serbia in the late 1990s and are seen by many in the country as heroes.

After the war ended in 1999, most of Kosovo’s leadership emerged from the Drenica Group, including the former Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, who is now foreign affairs minister.

Besides Thaci, Sylejman Selimi, Kosovo’s former ambassador to Albania, was the most prominent member, and was also one of the best-known defendants in the Drenica Group trial. Both Selimi and Thaci were convicted of terrorism in 1997 by the Serbian authorities but never served their sentences.

After the war, Selimi was appointed as the commander of the Kosovo Guard, then commander of the Kosovo Protection Corps. He then became the commander of the Kosovo Security Force until 2011, when he was appointed ambassador to Tirana. He was arrested in 2013 together with Sami Lushtaku, another prominent ex-member of the Drenica Group.

Lushtaku, currently mayor of the town of Skenderaj/Srbica, turned to politics after the war and joined the Democratic Party of Kosovo, also known as the PDK, run by Hashim Thaci. The party mostly consisted of former KLA members and was formed right after the demilitarisation of the guerrilla group in late 1999.

According to a report by Council of Europe rapporteur Dick Marty, the Drenica Group was involved various organised criminal activities ranging from money-laundering to smuggling drugs and cigarettes, people-trafficking, prostitution and the forced monopolisation of the largest sectors of the Kosovo economy, including vehicle fuel and construction.

But the most serious accusations said the group was also involved in harvesting the organs of prisoners captured in the Kosovo conflict – although no one has ever been indicted for this and former KLA chiefs have strongly denied it ever happened.

Murder and torture allegations

The KLA building in Likovc/Likovac.

The 15 former members of the KLA – Agim Demaj, Bashkim Demaj, Driton Demaj, Selam Demaj, Fadil Demaku, Jahir Demaku, Nexhat Demaku, Zeqir Demaku, Sabit Geci, Ismet Haxha, Sahit Jashari, Sami Lushtaku, Sylejman Selimi, Isni Thaci and Avni Zabeli – were indicted for alleged war crimes against civilian prisoners.

According to the indictment, in September 1998 the men “endangered the bodily integrity” of two civilians who were imprisoned at a KLA detention centre in the village of Likovc/Likovac in the Skenderaj/Srbica municipality. The indictment said they beat the victims with sticks and forced them to beat each other. A number of other civilians were also allegedly tortured and beaten at the same detention centre and in the village of Likovc/Likovac from September 1998 until the beginning of 1999.

The men were further alleged to have tortured a number of unidentified Albanian civilians during August and September 1998 in the village of Shipol in the municipality of Mitrovica.

The indictment also accused Sabit Geci and Sahit Jashari of the murder of Serb policeman Ivan Bulatovic in June 1998 by cutting his throat with a chainsaw.

According to the indictment, Sami Lushtaku was also responsible for shooting dead a number of civilians in an undetermined location between the villages of Galic and Dubovc in September 1998.

Witnesses change their stories

A protest T-shirt proclaiming one defendant’s innocence.

During the two-year-long trial, the biggest challenge for the court was to secure witness safety and credibility. Before the trial even started, some of the protected witnesses were exposed by Kosovo journalist Milaim Zeka, who broadcast an interview with their faces hidden but their voices identifiable, which is prohibited by Kosovo law.

Problems continued during the course of the trial as some of the witnesses proposed by the prosecution changed their testimonies from the statements they gave during the investigation or to the police. Most of the witnesses claimed that their original statements were doctored or not properly translated, or that they didn’t get to check what had been written in their name.

Some of the witnesses were also declared ‘hostile witnesses’ after they were called by the prosecution but then changed their testimonies completely.

Most of the witnesses said the former KLA fighters beat them “because they cooperated with Serbia” during Belgrade’s conflict with the guerrilla force.

A protected witness codenamed A told the court that Hashim Thaci directly ordered Sylejman Selimi to “kill these people” – meaning alleged collaborators with the Serbian government.

The witness also said that Selimi had told him that the United States was paying them to murder the alleged collaborators.

“I was told by Sylejman Selimi, Hysni Thaci, Zeqir Demaku and Jahir Demaku. They told me that they each got 500 German marks a month to murder the spies,” the witness added.

Other witnesses confirmed that there were regular beatings at the detention centre in Likovc/Likovac. Protected witness K said that when her husband came home after being held there for a month, he was badly injured.

“His condition was very serious, he had blood on his clothes, broken ribs, and he was swollen all over his body. I wondered how he could have walked and come home in that condition,” the witness said.

However, some of the key witnesses who changed their testimony during the trial accused EULEX (the EU’s rule-of-law mission in Kosovo) of mistreatment, including the witness codenamed F, who retracted incriminating statements he made about the defendants. Witness F told the court that former EULEX prosecutor Maurizio Salustro had written what he wanted in the statement in return for sending him and his sick wife abroad.

The defendants deny everything

Sylejman Selimi.

All the men on trial insisted they were not guilty and that their fight against Serbia was legitimate and honourable.

In his closing statement, Sami Lushtaku told the judge that he defended his country during the war but committed no crime.

“I am not looking for mercy, but justice,” Lushtaku said.

He added that he would act in the same way under similar circumstances.

“If I had 100 lives, I would do the same,” he said.

The court, in the end, decided he was guilty of murder, and Selimi guilty of torturing a civilian prisoner.

Lushtaku was sentenced to 12 years in jail and Selimi was given two separate sentences of six and eight years. Nine of the other ex-guerrillas were also convicted, while the remaining four were acquitted.