A new report, “Breaking the Silence: Justice for War Victims?”, produced by the Humanitarian Law Centre Kosovo, HLCK, which was launched on Friday in the capital, Prishtina, noted an increase in indictments for sexual abuse during the Kosovo war – a notable shift as victims begin to break their silence.

However, the report highlights the need for legal cooperation with Serbia to ensure greater efficiency in handling war crimes cases.

Amer Alija, a lawyer at HLCK, said that in 2024, “compared to previous years, the increase in sexual violence charges is a positive development, as victims have begun to break the silence.

“Throughout 2024, 35 cases of war crimes were addressed, 10 of which involve charges of sexual violence as a war crime. This is in contrast to the 25 previous years, when [only] four to five cases were handled,” he added.

In 2024, the Kosovo Special Prosecutor’s Office filed 13 indictments for war crimes. Six were filed in absentia for 11 suspects, all allegedly members of Serbian military or police forces. Seven were against 13 former members of Serbian forces who had already been arrested. In 2023, eight indictments were filed in absentia against 61 accused.

In December 2024, the Prishtina Basic Court, in the first such ruling issued in absentia, sentenced former Serbian fighter Cedomir Aksic to 15 years’ imprisonment for involvement in mistreatment, expulsions and murders in Shtime/Stimlje municipality and the surrounding villages of Mollopolc, Recak and Petrove in April 1999. The ruling can be appealed.

In 2019, in an attempt to improve prosecutions for war crimes, the Kosovo Assembly amended the Criminal Code to allow trials in absentia in cases involving offences against international humanitarian law and international criminal law that were committed between January 1990 and June 1999.

A total of 34 war crime cases involving 100 accused were ongoing during 2024 in Kosovo courts. According to the report, 98 of these suspects were members of Serbia’s forces. One separate case concerned two suspects who were members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA.

During 2024, the police’s directorate for war crimes submitted 15 criminal complaints against 139 suspects, along with five supplementary charges. One extra prosecutor handled war crimes cases in 2024, upping the total number to five.

Albina Shabani Rama, Director of the Prishtina Basic Court, noted that the treatment of war-related cases in court has taken on a new dynamic because of the increased number of cases.

“This was a new field for us, requiring expertise for the past six years. The profiling of judges has also impacted the increase in supporting staff to prioritise and properly handle such cases,” he said.

Kosovo’s judiciary received 900 war crimes cases from the EU rule-of-law mission in Kosovo, EULEX. The UN mission in Kosovo, UNMIK, and then the EU rule-of-law mission, EULEX, conducted only a dozen war crimes trials, which were also criticised for being unnecessarily protracted.

Shabani Rama highlighted that “the number of convictions is small compared to the high number of victims”.

Jovana Filipovic, a defence lawyer, stated that one of the main problems was that, “those who truly committed crimes in Kosovo will most certainly never come here. We need cooperation with Serbia because these relations are often lacking, resulting in evidence being rejected, which is a significant challenge for us”.

Filipovic also highlighted issues within the Kosovo judicial system, such as not receiving case files on time. She believes the right to a fair trial is often violated because “the accused may flee to Serbia”.

The report highlights the need for regional cooperation, especially with Serbia, and recommends improvement in translating case documents when the accused is an ethnic Serb.

“HLCK, in its annual recommendations for several years now, has emphasised the need to establish legal cooperation with Serbia … The lack of cooperation and the exchange of information between the investigative bodies of Kosovo and Serbia negatively impacts the effectiveness of raising indictments for war crimes,” the report warns.