26 Aug 2011

ICTY / KABASHI

A key witness today pleaded guilty to contempt of court for refusing to testify in the trial at a UN war crimes tribunal of former Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj on charges of crimes against humanity. ICTY

Posted at: August 26, 2011 1:30 pm

Duration: 00:50

Available in: SD

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Full script

STORY: ICTY / KABASHI
TRT: 00:50
SOURCE: ICTY
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGES: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: 26 AUGUST 2011, THE HAGUE, THE NETHERLANDS / RECENT

SHOTLIST:

RECENT - THE HAGUE, THE NETHERLANDS

1. Wide shot, exterior ICTY headquarters

26 AUGUST 2011, THE HAGUE, THE NETHERLANDS

2. Wide shot, judges at ICTY
3. Med shot, Shefqet Kabashi
4. SOUNDUP (English) Alphons Orie, Judge, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia:
"Mr. Kabashi, the charges against you concern two incidences of having failed or refused to questions when you appeared as a witness." 
5. SOUNDUP (Albanian) Shefqet Kabashi, Former Member, Kosovo Liberation Army:
"Guilty."
6. SOUNDUP (English) Alphons Orie, Judge, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia:
"Madam Registrar, would you please record that Mr. Kabashi pled guilty on both accounts."  
7. Wide shot, judges at ICTY

STORYLINE:

A key witness today (26 Aug) pleaded guilty to contempt of court for refusing to testify in the trial at a United Nations war crimes tribunal of former Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj on charges of crimes against humanity.

Shefqet Kabashi, a former member of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), refused to testify in 2007 at the first trial of Haradinaj, KLA commander during its conflict with Serb forces in 1998-99.

He entered his plea at a session of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, Netherlands, after being handed over to the court earlier this month by Dutch authorities.

The ICTY acquitted Haradinaj in 2008 of charges of murder, rape, torture, abduction, cruel treatment, imprisonment and the forced deportation of ethnic Serbian and Kosovar Roma civilians.

But appeals judges partially quashed the acquittal last year, calling for a re-trial because the trial chamber had not done more to ensure the testimony of certain witnesses given "serious witness intimidation," thus depriving the prosecution of vital support for its case. The original trial had heard how many witnesses felt unsafe.

Earlier this month, the tribunal said Kabashi's testimony was relevant as it related to the alleged responsibility of Haradinaj and two co-accused, Idriz Balaj and Lahi Brahimaj, on six counts of torture and murder of prisoners at the KLA headquarters and the prison in Jablanica/Jabllanicë.