Kosovo war crimes prosecutor interviewed

Media blackout

Prosecutor Drita Hajdari believes "there was the media blackout about these war crimes for nearly twenty years":

- I do not remember, I have not followed if any of your colleagues researched or wrote about the situation with regard to the war crimes until they were handed over to us. And even today, they are more focused on the statistics, they do not deal with the core issues. I do not see the media being willing to explain the citizens of Kosovo the necessity of prosecuting the war crimes, that a crime is a crime whoever committed it. I would like to stress this because support of the public and citizens is important and apart from the fact they should be informed, I believe they have certain information and can help.

UNMIK and EULEX missions with a large number of prosecutors failed to solve murders and abductions of journalists, and local prosecutors are expected now to redeem what the international ones failed to do.

And this should be done with only two prosecutors, says Drita Hajdari, a war crimes prosecutor Prosecutorat the Special Prosecutor Office of Kosovo, in an interview for the Dossier on kidnapped and murdered journalists and media workers. Prosecutor could not provide more details about the investigations related to kidnapping of the Radio Pristina journalist Ljubomir Knezevic and murder of Enver Maloku because, as she stressed, they were in progress. As for documents related to the investigation of kidnaping of Djuro Slavuj and Ranko Perenic, the Prosecutor's Office has not yet received them from EULEX. Hajdari says that the Prosecutor's Office did not have any information whatsoever about murders of Afrim Maliqi, KristGegaj, Momir Stokuca, Shefki Popova and Bardhyl Ajeti.