Category: News and Events

Cases of criminal offense on public property were reported during the TV program “Justice in Kosovo”. There were 15 cases of former lawyers of the Court of Pristina who gave illegal verdicts in cases of privatizing public property. The total estimated damage was around 60 million euro.

All those cases were managed by Judge Nuhi Uka in the Basic Court in Pristina. He distributed the 15 indictments to different lawyers and all of them broke the chronological schedule in the court.

All the accused people in this process were sentenced with conditioned jail starting from six months to up to 2 years.

Previous cases in the juridical system showed evidences that other members of the juridical system have been sentenced up to six years in prison for the same type of criminal offense.

“This judgment was not fair, this sentence policies, create space for misuses within the juridical system” said Armend Zenelaj Court Monitor from BIRN

“The investigation should have last to prove who really benefited and how much money got each of them” he added.

The prosecutor of the case said he was fine with the sentence but he did not agree to the scale of the sentence.

Citizens are illegally cutting the woods and no one is preventing this. “Justice in Kosovo” interviewed the minister of defense regarding this matter

“This is a repeating of such incidents in the same area” said Bajram RexhepiHe said that they had information that the wood cutters were cutting woods in Serbia border.

First the villagers were scared to talk they didn’t want to talk publicly.The reason why they go illegally to Serbia is because they have like more woods than the Kosovo part.

The minister of Defense says he is informed of this activity, and if the two police did not collaborate it would be hard to stop this.

A Serbian from Metergovc admitted to the camera that he has seen people cutting woods and they have no problem from the border police two pass the border more than 2 km without being stopped by the police.

After reporting the incident of wood cutting the crew of “Justice in Kosovo” visited the same area again and they noticed that the situation didn’t change at all and there are people who continue this activity.

Faik Kadriu from municipality of Podujeva said that it’s not under their responsibility to follow this citizen; the Serbian authorities should take responsibilities because the illegal activity is done in their territory.

After having broadcasted several programs that showed the conditions of judicial in the main municipalities in Kosovo, “Justice in Kosovo” discussed with the head of the Judicial Council Enver Peci.

Regarding the insufficient number of judges Peci said that this came as a result of the reform in the judicial system. Judges that were not properly qualified were fired by their positions.

On the other hand the number of cases has increased and a lot of them are inherited by the past, this has brought to the situation that the actual judges cannot manage to treat all the cases.Peci added that it takes time to prepare professional judges,

Another problem faced is, bad conditions of working environments, and spaces. According to Peci this conditions will not change if the budget will not increase.
He also said that they made a request for budget increasing but it was not approved by the members of the parliament.

Peci said that on the hearing session for budget planning in the parliament all the deputies of the parliament agreed that the budget for the Judicial should increase and he is surprised how they didn’t vote for this.

Peci also declared that the conditions of the Council buildings are worse than the buildings of many courts all over Kosovo.
The only hope for better environments is the Palace of Justice. We are waiting to be transferred in the new building as soon as the Palace of Justice where the conditions will be better.

Another problem discussed was the Appeal Court missing 6 judges. Peci according this problem said that they have finished the interview with potential judges and till the end of August they will start to work by the Court of Appeal.

The court of Appeal is also missing a web page, according this Peci said that the web page is getting finalized and will be ready to use in short time.
The problem of the web page is present also in other courts in Kosovo, but what is more concerning is missing of judges.

The basic Court of Pristine needs 22 more judges to work in normal conditions, regarding this Peci said that he is aware but he repeated that it is impossible to have this number of professional judges nowadays.

 

The Prishtina Court covers the largest area of all the courts and according to Hamdi Ibrahimi head of the basic court in Pristina, the number of judges in this court is only the half of what it should be.

“A judge is in charge of 1600 cases, this shows clearly how difficult is the situation” he added.
He explained that most of the time they are treating old cases and do not have time for the new ones.

“If we close the doors of the court today it will take five years to finish old cases” said Ibrahimi.
Another concerning thing in the basic court of Pristine is also the absence of prosecutors in the court to present their cases.

This was confirmed also by the head of the prosecution of Pristine Imer Beka who said that the number of prosecutors they have is insufficient to follow all the cases.

“At the moment we have 27 prosecutors and based on the volume of the cases we need 68 this makes the prosecutors incapable to follow all the cases” said Beka.

Another problem inside the judicial system in Pristina is the absence of professional collaborators.

The head of the court said that they don’t have enough professional collaborators and the existing technical staff is not qualified enough.

Same situation is in the prosecution of Pristine the number of professional collaborators is not enough to maintain a normal level of performance.

The main cases that should be treated in the court of Pristine should be those related to corruption according Ibrahimi, but according to him the prosecution doesn’t present many of them.

The head of the prosecution Imer Beka said that corruption cases are priority but the big volume of work prevents the prosecutors from following them.

Both Prosecution and Court of Pristine are facing the lack of adequate working places. The Court activity is divided in different buildings in Pristine they are looking forward to be transferred at the Palace of Justice.

After 18 months of starting its activity also the Court of Appeal in Pristine is facing a lot of problems.

Sali Meka the head of this court said that even though the number of judges has been reduced they have made a big progress in reducing the number of old cases.

After the employee Besnik Beqiri was wounded different questions came out. Is Trepca respecting the law of work, what kind of contradicting reports came out from this incident.

Why Trpeca is paying less than 2 euro insurance per month for the employees, and how much is the refund in cases when an employee loses his life?

The employee Besnik Beqir risks losing his life after a serious incident in the mine of Trepca. He started to work when he was only 24. On October 2013 he was wounded in the floatation of Kishnica, his arm was stacked in the mill, while he was painting the transporting mechanism.

The accident left serious consequences. Seven months after this incident no answer from the responsible bodies was given. According the instructions while the mill is working you should not touch it, according to Besnik nobody told him not to touch this machine while it is working.

Bislim Fetahi, former director of the flotation machine at that time now the head of Kishnica mine said that it wasn’t him to tell Beqiri to work at that place, while Riza Vrajolli co-director of Kishnica mine at that time said that the machine cant touched while it is working.

No kind of qualification is needed to work there he added.
It was an accident that touched all of us.

Vrajolli said that Bnik Beqiri was sent to work there by the supervisor Hysni Pllana the day of accident.

The place where Beqiri was working is the safest place said Pllana .

The report of the labor inspectorate on the other hand shows it is not a safe one. The risk of accidents in this place is high according to Basri Ibrahimi the head of labor inspectorate.
The place of work was not a safe on and the employee was not trained for this job when he started there he added.

The report made by the inspector Dejan Stojanovic shows that the reasons of the accident were the lack of safety at the working place, lack of training and information before starting to work there.

The Trepca executives make guilty the employee for the accident.
Besnik Beqiri says that he didn’t know the place where he was working was not a risky on.
“The warning signs were missing” he said.

No one is responsible for this accident the executives of Trepca do not take responsibility on what happened while the labor inspectorate makes them responsible in this accident.

Another institution the independent commission of surveillance of the mines came up with a report saying that everything was fine at the day of accident.

Executives of Trepca promised to study the case again to find out why this accident happened.
We will analyze the case and try to find out what happened said Tmava the head of Trepca.
This case is being treated also by the Kosovo Police.

Besnik Beqiri is hoping to get better.

Bahri Gjyshnica the doctor that treated him says that it is a very heavy case in the beginning he thought that Beqir would have lost the arm, after the surgery they managed to save the arm of Beqiri.

The treatment cost a lot and Beqiri says he cannot afford to pay it.

He should be treated out of Kosovo and make a transplant of the nerve said doctor Gjyshnica.
Nowadays Trepca pays no more than 2 euro per month per employee for the insurance of the employees, and a total 15000 employees.

The insurance company of Trepca is Siguria with owner Behxhet Pacolli .
Rrahim Pacolli executive director of the company said that the employee will be refund for two categories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a decision from the government of Kosovo to stop the exploitation of gravel from the rivers in Kosovo; this decision is not being respected in the Bistrica River.

The crew of “Justice in Kosovo” inspected the area of Gllavicica and what they found out is that the exploitation of the gravel in this part of Bistrica River was continuing.

After they called the inspectors of mines and minerals the head of inspectors answered that they could not come and stop the illegal exploiters because it was their day off more precisely the day of the constitution.

On another working day “Justice in Kosovo” visited the same area again and tried to contact the inspectorate of mines and minerals on the phone again.

The answer was the same they couldn’t come and stop this illegal activity.

The inspectorate was visited in their offices to find out how come they couldn’t do anything to stop the illegal activity after being informed on the phone.

Jahir Gashi the head of the inspectorate said that in Gllavicica they have identified three operators that do this activity.

He also admitted that he saw the recordings of Drejtesia ne Kosove showing the exploitations in this area and immediately after that they send their inspectors there and have sued the three operators.

After the interview the crew visited again same area on Bistrica area, and following the tracks that were filled with gravel they found out that they were being discharged in a separation in the same village that has no working license.

They called again the inspectorate that this time answered positively to the phone call and sent inspectors in this area.

The inspectors arrived after two hours and stopped to vans filled with gravel.

One of the vans was stopped because was filled in a separation with no license to operate. The inspectors found out that it was the company IMN Beton.

The employees on the place do not accept that the vans were filled there.
After that the inspectors did their job and took all the evidences of this illegal activity.

The company IMN Beton that was working in this area is registered under the names of Visa Muriq, Nysret Kastrati, Adnan Spahiaj .

This company was contacted on the number left on the business register body.
Nysret Kastrati answered the phone call that didn’t want to comment.

“For the separation you should talk with the partner Adnan Spahiu “he said.

Spahiu after being contacted on the phone said he would answer on Tuesday but after being called on that day he didn’t agree to give an interview and denied that their company had exploited gravel.

In the same area there is only one company that has the license is Artan Berisha’s company.
He stated in front of the camera that different companies with no license exploit wherever they want.

“For each van I pay to the state 30 euro, the other companies pay nothing so their price is cheaper” Berisha said.

He also said that he informed the inspectors but they did never reacted. “The situation is not good even in other rivers” said Gashi from the inspectorate of mines. “The solution for this situation is in the licensing process, because even the illegal ones are interested to get licenses” added Gashi.

After this story there comes a brief report of a raid of the police in Dukagjini area. The police raid the houses of Elshani family in the village of Ozdrim Peja city.

During the operation some of the houses that the police raided were the wrong ones. One of these houses was Beqiraj Family that was totally surprised from this action of the police.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The constitution of Kosovo guarantees a fair and rapid juridical process.Kapiti family and Kosumi family had two wait a lot of years for juridical process.

Kapiti family is being waiting since 1999 for a juridical process of a murder that their son committed. After 13 years of process the court gave the verdict that it was an occasional murder.Familiar of the accused explain the situation how all this happened.

The family members of the two victims do not want to comment. The lawyer of Kapiti Azem Vllasi says that his right for a rapid process was violated.

The judgment of this case is a marathon he added. “Kapiti case passed all the reasonable terms of a judgment” said Fejzullah Hasani head of the Supreme Court.

Another similar case is the case of the 75 year old Isa Qerimi from Gilan since 14 years didn’t get a final verdict from the court.He used to work for 20 years till 1990 as a stimulant interpreter in the municipality of Gilan.

After the war even he presented requests to come back to his working place he never got answer.For this reason he made an indictment in September 2000 and still today he doesn’t have an answer.

“Some of the former employees of the municipality who made the indictment toward the municipality were not lucky to wait for the verdict cause they died during this 14 year” said Head of the basic court of Gilan Zyhdi Haziri .
Now this case is being treated again by the basic court of Gilan.

“We will respect the verdict of the court “said Arber Ismajli from the municipality of Gjilan.

According the statistics on the courts of Kosovo there are 420 thousand cases not resolved.
Kosumi family became also a regular visitor of the court since their brother died in a traffic accident on the way Podujev – Prishtina.

The request from the family for compensation from the insurance company is still on the court.
“After 8 years this case will be preceded” said the head of the Court Salih Meka.On the basic court 400 thousand cases are waiting for a verdict.

“Soon we will be obliged by the EU to make a law that will stop the prolonging of the process “said Fejzullah Hasani head of the Basic court.

“If the right for a fair judgment is violated it threatens also other human rights” said Arpi Avetisyan lawer.

Below there is an insert from the Kosovo police traffic patrolling in Pristina.
It presents an action from the police regarding the alcohol consuming while driving and if drivers respect the traffic signs.

In the offices of the Kosovo police are stored documents of high importance. For a long time whispers were circulating that Serbian MUP had access on them.
This became stronger after the action of the police in Shterpca region.

These four officials working in the police station of Shterpca were under suspicion of leaking information to the MUP: Radisha Markovic,Dragan Markovic,Dejan Stojanovic,Dejan Gjorkovic.

Discovering the network came 3 months after of investigation by the police of KosovoThe Police of Kosovo organized a raid at the house of a Serbian citizen of Shterpca, Dragotin Ivanovic.During this raid guns were confiscated along with technical devices like mobile phones also documents.

Another part treated in the same in this Municipality is the functioning of the parallel Court.
Even though Edita Tahiri promised that no parallel institutions will exist after signing the agreement with Belgrade.

A parallel court giving verdicts still exists. This court left Dragotin Ivanovic in house arrest. The prosecution didn’t agree on this and sent the case to the Court of Appeal.

The head of the Court in Ferizaj was contacted by a reporter from “Justice in Kosovo.” but the individual chose not to comment

According the law in Kosovo if an accused person cannot support to pay a lawyer, the state finds one for him. This is called ex officio lawyer.

All licensed lawyers should be committed by the state but according the lists of ex officio engaged lawyers only some names appear.

On February 2011 “Justice in Kosovo” reported irregularities on the engagement of ex-officio lawers.

In 2014 the situation a little changed.
The most paid ex-officio lawyers in the two biggest districts Pristine and Prizren are, in Pristina the lawyer Drita Hoxha with a total of 4467 euro, Zymrete Muniqi Zeka 4386 euro, Adem Ademi 4216 euro and Ali Beka 3948 euro.

In the district of Prizren on top of the list is the lawyer Hana Canaj with a total of 5400 euro , than Hajrip Krasniqi with 4924 euro ,Avni Berisha 4881 euro and Osman Zajmi me 4058 euro.

The same situation there is on the prosecution list, on top of the list as most paid for ex officio engagement is the lawyer Arsim Bilali with a total of 3642 euro than Halil Derguti with 3157 euro, Fatmire Braha me 2784 euro and Hana Canaj me 2504 euro.

“If we check the payment list of the lawyer’s specific names being engaged more frequently bring the doubt of selection according personal preferences” said Ylli Zeka head of the Chamber of lawyers

“In the district of Pristina we have a number of 100 lawyer declared for ex officio defense service and only a minor number is being called for ex officio defense” said Administrator of the Chamber of Lawyers Florim Shefqeti.
The chamber of Lawyer created a system for a fair selection of the ex officio lawyer but still today it is not working.

A lot of suspicious guys were benefiting from breaking the law from the possibility given to Serbs during 2011-2012 to register their cars on RKS OR KS plates without having to pay taxes and custom. The police officers found 964 cars with falsified registration files, only in one center of registration.

Falsified registration files were found from the police in the registration center of Llapnalles and they have the suspicion that should be also others in other localities.

The police found out this out accidentally during another mission on human trafficking in Gracanica while raiding a house they saw all the papers.
They found 964 falsified car registration file on November 22, 2013 and after this they raided the vehicle registration center in Llapanesell village.

Approximately the fee of paying taxes and custom is about 2 thousand euro.

The Middle Man
The police found out that under suspicion, D.D and N.K were mediating the registration of a vast number of cars.

According to the police the D.D was finding the clients who wanted to register their cars and his collaborator N.K prepared all the documents.

For this registration procedure they were asking from 1 up to 2 thousand euro. Police is presuming that a large number of luxury cars registered in more than 13 years were registered this way avoiding taxes.

On the administrative order 38/2012 for registration of cars from the plates from FRY to temporarily RKS plates, Article 2 permits the registration of all cars registered in Kosovo before and after June 10, 1999, with only one condition that they should not have been registered after October 31, 2011.

The Coordinator of this registration center part of the Ministry of Internal of Kosovo explains the procedure of registration: “This procedure was meant to re-register the cars from the plates PR to RKS or KS “said Vitkoviq.

He explained that during the registration they had always to leave to our office the old document released by Serbian authorities.

According to Vitkoviq the cars were registered with no previous verification.

“We didn’t verify the car. It was done after registering them. Our responsibility was only to register them. We couldn’t verify the document realized by the Serbian” said Vitkoviq.

Even the Administrative order 38/2012 of the Ministry of Intern for sees that the verification comes after they finish with the registration and give the plates to the car.