January 2017 is the month in which the newly formed specialized Criminal Tribunal for Kosovo based in the Hague starts working. The establishment of the new institution and the development of rules for its work is now in the hands of a Bulgarian judge with an excellent reputation - prof. Ekaterina Trendafilova. She takes the position of President of the new institution after 9-year mandate at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. There she was a judge in cases involving serious crimes against humanity committed in Uganda, Central African Republic, Kenya, Congo, Sudan and others. In Kenya, during the trial of Deputy Prime Minister Uhura Kenyatta prof. Trendafilova won the sympathy of the population with her determination and undisputed professionalism. Hearings were broadcast on television and were the most talked about thing in bars, restaurants and shops. Children in Kenya were also named after her.

Professor Trendafilova is among the foremost experts in the field of criminal procedures. She has participated in reforming the Bulgarian system of criminal procedures, as well as in the preparation of a number of regulations relating to the judiciary. She was head of the in Criminal Science Department at the Legislation Council to the parliament speaker. In the period 1992-1995 Ekaterina Trendafilova was representative of Bulgaria in the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, based in Vienna.

The first signal of the need for establishment of such a tribunal came from Carla del Ponte - the first prosecutor of the Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. In 2008 she released her book "The Hunt: Me and the War Criminals." It contains information about a number of crimes investigated by Del Ponte, for which there is evidence, but in the course of her work, she failed to press charges because of various obstacles. It comes to crimes like murder for the purpose of organ trafficking, kidnapping, sexual atrocities against Serbs and Roma, as well as against Albanians suspected of supporting the Serbs in armed conflict for secession of Kosovo from Serbia (1998-1999) and before that. The perpetrators were senior members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). They are viewed as national heroes by the Albanian population and this creates additional difficulties in investigating in Kosovo and northern Albania.

Such serious allegations cannot remain without response and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe assigned checks immediately after the release of the book. The information in Del Ponte’s book was confirmed. After that the EU formed a committee for the Investigation of crimes in Kosovo. Gradually the conclusion that only a specialized court outside the country can provide independent, objective and impartial investigation was reached.

In August 2015 the parliament in Pristina adopted a law on the establishment of a specialized court with a structure similar to the levels of the judicial system in Kosovo. The court is based in The Hague and consists of international judges. The aim is to ensure fair justice, which, however, should be accepted positively not only by the international community but also by the Kosovo population.

The presence of prof. Ekaterina Trendafilova in the new tribunal gives hope that the institution will start functioning successfully. And that is undoubtedly important to the whole of the region. The international community knows that responsibility for the crimes should be sought in order for the Balkan Peninsula to stop being a powder keg. Another proof are growing tensions between Kosovo and Serbia in recent days.

English: Alexander Markov