Albanian Convicted of Contempt

Judges this week convicted a Kosovo Albanian man of interfering with a witness in the Hague tribunal’s first war crimes proceedings against former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA.

Beqe Beqaj, who had already been in detention for some five months pending his trial on contempt charges, was given a four-month prison sentence and was released immediately following the May 5 judgement hearing.

Speaking in court, presiding judge Amin El-Mahdi said the chamber was satisfied that Beqaj “knowingly and wilfully intended to influence the testimony” that the witness in question – referred to only by the pseudonym B1 – was to provide against Hague indictees Fatmir Limaj and Isak Musliu.

Limaj and Musliu are currently on trial for war crimes along with a third man, Haradin Bala. They are accused of running a prison camp in the village of Lapusnik from May to July 1998 where Serbs and suspected Albanian collaborators were beaten and murdered.

B1, a key witness in the trial, has told judges that he was held at the camp and that he survived a massacre of a group of prisoners when it was eventually closed down.

He has apparently been living under protection outside Kosovo since late 2003 following a series of threats to himself and his family and even two attempts on his life.

Prosecutors argued as part of their case that Beqaj, who is related to Musliu by marriage, was uniquely placed to relay messages from his in-law in The Hague to the witness – with whom he also had close family relations. Beqaj was apparently taken in by B1’s father when he was orphaned as a child.

Judges said they were convinced of Beqaj’s guilt by two recorded telephone calls played in court, in which the accused was heard urging B1 to return to Kosovo and “say that you have nothing to do with Fatmir Limaj and Isak [Musliu]”.

In one recording, Beqaj implores the witness to “come fix something up” for the sake of “the entire Albanian people of Kosovo”.

Judges said Beqaj’s remarks during both conversations were so clearly incriminating as to make it irrelevant that it was B1 who had actually made the calls in the first place. Akerson said investigators had asked B1 to make the recorded calls in order to clarify reports they had heard about Beqaj’s errant behaviour.

Also incriminating, judges said, was another phone call in which Beqaj was heard telling a third party, “We can’t hang our hopes on him... he’s playing word games.” And later adding, “I’m so angry”.

But judges threw out claims by prosecutors that Beqaj also tried to interfere with another witness, B2, explaining that they hadn’t seen enough evidence to convince them that this was the case.

And, for the same reason, they dismissed allegations that Beqaj offered a bribe of land to B1 to withdraw his statement against Limaj and Musliu.

They also found Beqaj not guilty of a separate charge of incitement to contempt of the tribunal.

Prosecutors had originally asked for a six-month prison sentence for Beqaj. Judges accepted their submission that the vulnerability of witness B1 – who has undergone much trauma and been forced to accept life under protection – should count as an aggravating factor in the case.

But they also agreed with a submission by Beqaj’s defence counsel Tjarda Eduard van der Spoel that there were also a number of mitigating factors. These included Beqaj’s lack of a criminal record and the fact that during a period of provisional release earlier this year, he complied with tribunal rules and returned to The Hague in time for his trial.

Another mitigating factor, judges allowed, was the positive assessment of Beqaj given by both B1 and B2 when they testified during the prosecution case.

B2, for his part, reported that Beqaj “is a good person” and insisted that “his in-laws... tricked him into these things”.

B1, who told judges he never thought the recorded conversations between himself and the accused would lead to the latter’s arrest, also emphasised that Beqaj never acted as anything more than a mediator in the whole affair.

The court will make a full version of its judgment against Beqaj available at a later stage.

Michael Farquhar is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.