The Kosovo Specialist Chambers, KSC, in The Hague on Tuesday said media coverage painted an inaccurate picture of a preliminary review of rights-related issues at the war crimes court conducted by the Bar Human Rights Committee, BHRC, of England and Wales and commissioned by the Kosovo Ombudsperson.

The KSC said that “certain characterisations of the BHRC Report made by the Kosovo Ombudsperson are inconsistent with and do not accurately represent the content and conclusions of the Report and thus create a misleading picture of the Specialist Chambers.

“Contrary to the Kosovo Ombudsperson’s public statements, the BHRC Report does not find that any of the decisions of Specialist Chambers’ judges have violated the human rights of any accused,” the statement said.

The KSC statement came after the Kosovo Ombudsperson Institution announced on May 6 that Ombudsperson Naim Qelaj had addressed the states funding the Kosovo Specialist Chambers on “concerns arising” from the BHRC report, including “reservations regarding fair trial guarantees”.

“Mr Qelaj emphasised that his Institution has maintained rigorous oversight of fundamental rights and detention conditions at the KSC. He further stressed that driven by serious and persistent concerns over judicial integrity, the Ombudsperson commissioned the BHRC to conduct an independent preliminary review of the proceedings in the KSC,” the Kosovo Ombudsperson Institution said.

The same statement added that the BHRC’s preliminary review “documents significant challenges to fundamental procedural guarantees afforded to the accused – most notably the right to a fair, transparent, and impartial trial”.

However, the KSC statement claims that “several issues raised by the Kosovo Ombudsperson, which were discussed in the BHRC Report, largely mirror arguments advanced by the defence”.

The KSC highlighted that the court is regulated by the Kosovo Constitution and the law on Specialist Chambers, which provides for its own Ombudsperson and tasks the International Committee of the Red Cross with monitoring and inspecting detention facilities “to ensure compliance with the highest international standards”.

According to the BHRC report, done independently from the Kosovo Ombudsperson Institution, while the “Chamber’s formal legal framework is broadly robust and in many respects aligned with international human rights norms, significant concerns arise in its practical operation”.

Those concerns include prolonged pre-trial detention, restrictions on provisional release, the admission of evidence and equality of arms.

The report also claims that, although the KSC is part of Kosovo’s judicial system, there is a “lack of expertise on Kosovo constitutional law and the Kosovo legal tradition more broadly on the KSC bench”.

The KSC verdict in the high-profile war crimes and crimes against humanity trial of Kosovo’s ex-President Hashim Thaci and three co-defendants, all wartime Kosovo Liberation Army officials, is expected in the coming months.