Kosovo War Victims ‘Fear Betrayal’ over Compensation Hopes

The judging panel in the case against former Kosovo Liberation Army commander Salih Mustafa at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers issued a ruling last year about compensation for victims which noted that Kosovo's Law on the Kosovo Specialist Chambers does not set specific criteria for how compensation can be obtained.

Although the Specialist Chambers are located in The Hague and staffed by internationals, they are part of Kosovo's judicial system and were established under Kosovo law to try crimes allegedly committed during and just after the war.

After the ruling on compensation for victims, the Victims Participation's Office at the Specialist Chambers asked three international experts to assess the situation. Their reports were published in late December 2021.

Some of the material in the reports and the experts' names have been classified as confidential, but the material in the public domain indicates a series of complex legal problems which victims may find hard to cope with.

One expert cautioned in one of the reports that although the Specialist Chambers have "well-defined jurisdiction over criminal prosecution", it will be difficult to find a legal basis for them to deal with victims' compensation cases.

The Specialist Chambers' sentencing decisions "will serve as a sufficient basis for proceeding with private civil lawsuits" for compensation, but victims will face "serious problems" in winning compensation in civil cases from the person who was found guilty, for a variety of legal and practical reasons, the expert continued.

These include the fact that Kosovo's law on compensation of victims of crime cannot currently be applied to cases heard at the Specialist Chambers, as well as the possibility that a convict might...