By Polly Johnson
Senior Desk Officer, Europe

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – The International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) sentenced a man this week for refusing to testify against former Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, who was charged with crimes against humanity for his actions while in the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during its conflict with Serbian forces in 1998-1999.

Shefqet Kabashi pleaded guilty on August 26 to two counts of contempt of court for his failure to testify in Haradinaj’s original trial in June 2007. Coincidentally, only four days before pleading guilty on August 17, Kabashi refused to testify once again in Haradinaj’s present retrial. The retrial had been scheduled for the sole purpose of obtaining Kabashi’s testimony. He gave no reasons for his current decision not to testify, though some Serbian media sources have reported witnesses being intimated and even murdered to prevent the dissemination of evidence. ICTY has denied those reports.

In handing down the ruling at The Hague, Judge Alphons Orie said that Kabashi had “deprived the trial chamber of the evidence relevant for an effective ascertainment of truth” in Haradinaj’s trial.

Kabashi served as a KLA guard during the 1998-1999 period, when Haradinaj, along with his subordinates Idriz Bala and Lahi Brahimaj, allegedly committed multiple crimes against Roma, Serb and Albanian civilians in the village of Jablanica in western Kosovo. Haradinaj subsequently garnered acclaim in Kosovo and served as the country’s prime minster until his 2005 indictment by ICTY.

When Kabashi refused to testify on June 5, 2007, in Haradinaj’s first trial, witness intimidation was cited as a possible motive. In the judge’s recent ruling on Kabashi’s refusal to testify in the re-trial, the judge discounted the defense’s claims of Kabashi’s frustration and war experience as motives for his actions. However, the ruling cited post-traumatic stress disorder made worse in a prison environment as a mitigating factor.

Haradinaj was acquitted in 2008 on charges including murder, rape, torture, abduction, cruel treatment, imprisonment, and forced deportation. The appellate court partially reversed his acquittal, calling for a retrial because of the original trial’s failure to obtain testimony from Kabashi and other witnesses.

For more information, please see:

Monsters & Critics – Unwilling witness in Haradinaj trial gets two months for contempt – 16 September 2011

Radio Netherlands – ICTY: Kabashi in contempt – 16 September 2011

UN News Centre – UN war crimes tribunal jails Kosovo witness who refused to testify – 16 September 2011

UPI – War crimes witness pleads to contempt – 26 August 2011

By Alexandra Halsey-Storch
Impunity Watch Desk Reporter, Europe

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – On Tuesday September 13, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (“SNAP”), a Chicago-based non-profit organization, and the Center for Constitutional Rights (“CCR”), a New York City-based non-profit organization, filed an 80-page complaint accompanied by 20,000 pages of evidence to the International Criminal Court (“ICC”) urging the investigation and prosecution of the Pope and three other top Vatican officials who “tolerated and enabled the systemic and widespread” concealment of child sex abuse.

The ICC is a criminal court, independent from the functions of the United Nations. The Court is governed by the “Rome Statute,” which are a set of international laws, ratified by 117 countries including Italy, Germany and Belgium.  The United States is not a signatory.

Florence Olara, a spokesperson from the ICC prosecutor’s office has said that those reviewing the complaint and supporting evidence will first consider whether the crimes fall under the Court’s jurisdiction. There has been some speculation from international law experts suggesting that the ICC will dismiss the complaint for lack of jurisdiction, meaning that the court does not have the statutory authority to hear the case.

Article 5 of the Rome Statute reads in relevant part that, “the jurisdiction of the court shall be limited to the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole. The court has jurisdiction in accordance with this statute with respect to…crimes against humanity.” Furthermore, “crimes against humanity” are defined as, in relevant part, torture or rape (among others) or “other forms of sexual violence of comparable gravity when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of that attack.”

While the Vatican and the numerous Archdiocese Centers around the world have deemed sexual abuse to generally mean “inappropriate touching,” in an attempt to down-play the horrifying allegations, perhaps a Grand Jury in Philadelphia clarified the term best when it said, “sexual abuse does not just mean ‘inappropriate touching.’ We mean rape. Boys who were raped orally, boys who were raped anally, girls who were raped vaginally. But even those victims whose physical abuse did not include actual rape—those who were subjected to fondling, to masturbation, to pornography—suffered psychological abuse that scarred their lives and sapped the faith in which they had been raise.” For those crimes, Vatican officials “should be brought to trial like any other officials guilty of crimes against humanity.”

In their complaint, SNAP and CCR have argued that the sexual abuse against tens of thousands of children in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Mexico, and the United States among others, constitutes a “serious crime” that “concerns the international community as a whole.”  Pam Spees, an attorney with CCR explained that, “national jurisdictions can’t really get their arms around this. Prosecuting individual instances of child molestation or sexual abuse has not gotten at the larger systemic problem here. Accountability is the goal, and the ICC makes the most sense given that it is a global problem.”

Furthermore, the complaint further alleges that, “the [named] Vatican officials charged in this case are responsible for rape and other sexual violence and for the physical and psychological torture of victims around the world both through command responsibility and through direct cover up of crimes,” explained Spees.

Specifically, the complaint and accompanying evidence identifies “intentional cover-ups and affirmative steps taken that serve to perpetuate the violence and exacerbate the harm.” For example, various policies and practices were (and still are) in place that allowed high-level officials to move offending priests from “parish to parish with no warning to parishioners and others with whom [the priests] came in contact.

Perhaps most disturbing, is that the same or similar practices and policies have been found in virtually every country where cases of sexual violence have been brought to light.

On the other hand, international law expert Mark Ellis from the International Bar Association has argued in response to SNAP’s complaint that a “widespread or systemic attack” is really a “policy, in which the government or authorities are planning the attack.  When you look at the concept of why and how the ICC was created,” he says, “I just don’t think this fits.”

In the past, Pope Benedict, speaking on behalf of the Vatican, has expressed “shame and sorry” over the tragic accusations of sexual abuse made by victims about priests; but, he has also maintained that priests are appointed by bishops and not the “Vatican hierarchy,” in an attempt to divert responsibility.

In response to the filing of this particular complaint, Vatican spokesperson Federico Lombardi did not release a comment to the press.

Regardless of whether or not the ICC dismisses the complaint or authorizes further investigation, the New York Times has called this current complaint the “most substantive effort yet to hold the Pope and Vatican accountable in an international court for sexual abuse by priests.” Even if the ICC does dismiss the complaint for lack of jurisdiction, as Mark Ellis pointed out, “the filing does something that’s important. It raises awareness.”

For more information, please visit:

Center for Constitutional Rights – ICC Vatican Prosecution – 13 Sept. 2011

Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests – Child Abuse Victims accuse Pope of Crimes Against Humanity – 13 Sept. 2011

Belfast Telegraph – ‘War crime’ court asked to prop Vatican– 14 Sept. 2011

The New York Times – Abuse Victims Ask Court to Prosecute the Vatican – 13 Sept. 2011