The Kosovo Parliament should undertake all legal and Constitutional measures , including amending Article 162 of the Constitution, to disband the Specialist Chamber.
AARC STATEMENT ON TODAY’S SPECIALIST CHAMBERS JUDGMENT
September 16, 2026
The Albanian American Relations Council (AARC) strongly condemns today’s convictions of former Kosovo Liberation Army leaders by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague.
AARC has profound concerns about the legitimacy and credibility of a process that, from its creation, has subjected one side of the Kosovo war to a uniquely focused judicial process. The imbalance is striking: the proceedings of this court have resulted in charges against Albanians, while the broader record of crimes committed during the Kosovo war has not been addressed through an equivalent judicial process by this institution.
When a court equates the organized struggle for Kosovo’s independence and liberation with a criminal enterprise, it risks losing the confidence and legitimacy necessary for a judicial institution to command the respect of the people most directly affected by its decisions.
The proceedings also included testimony from prominent American officials with direct knowledge of the conflict. Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Wesley Clark, who was privy to detailed intelligence during the war, testified for the defense and stated that the charges did not stand in his assessment. Ambassador Christopher Hill and other former U.S. State Department officials likewise testified regarding the nature of the Kosovo Liberation Army and its role as a liberation movement opposing Serbian state repression and violence.
These testimonies do not, by themselves, determine the legal outcome of a trial. But they underscore the profound disagreement over the historical and factual characterization of the KLA and the conflict that this judgment now places before the public.
For AARC, this is not simply a matter of disagreement with a verdict. It is a matter of justice, historical memory, and institutional credibility.
The KLA fought to liberate Kosovo from a campaign of Serbian state repression and violence. Its leaders should not be placed within a uniquely prosecutorial framework that risks reducing the complex history of Kosovo’s liberation to a one-sided criminal narrative while failing to provide comparable judicial accountability for crimes committed against Kosovo’s Albanian population.
Today’s decision will also be experienced by many Kosovo Albanians as a profound retraumatization of a population that endured mass displacement, killings, persecution, and the destruction of homes and communities during the war. For a people of approximately 1.8 million Kosovo Albanians, the judgment touches not only on the fate of individual defendants, but on the collective memory of a struggle born out of repression and war.
AARC believes that the Specialist Chambers have failed to command the confidence of a substantial part of the people of Kosovo, and that today’s judgment will deepen that loss of confidence.
This is injustice in the name of justice.
We call upon the people of Kosovo and the Albanian-American community to remain calm and to reject any violence, retaliation, or acts that could undermine Kosovo’s democratic institutions. The defendants should pursue every available avenue of appeal through lawful judicial processes.
At the same time, AARC calls upon the Kosovo Assembly to immediately examine every lawful constitutional and legislative means available to address the continued existence and mandate of the Specialist Chambers. In AARC’s view, an institution that has lost the confidence of so many Kosovars should not continue indefinitely, and the Assembly should pursue the lawful process necessary to disband the Specialist Chambers.
We recognize that such action could have serious diplomatic and international consequences. Those consequences must be weighed against the ramifications of permitting an institution that has lost the confidence of so many Kosovars to continue indefinitely.
Kosovo fought for freedom, democracy, and the rule of law. Justice must be impartial, consistent, and grounded in the full historical record. Accountability must not be selective, politically shaped, or detached from the broader reality of the conflict.
AARC stands with Kosovo and with those who fought for its freedom.