KOSOVO: PROGRESS ON MISSING PERSONS AND FORENSICS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PRISTINA 000806

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR DRL, INL, AND EUR/SCE, NSC FOR BRAUN, USUN FOR
DREW SCHUFLETOWSKI, USOSCE FOR STEVE STEGER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/05/2017
TAGS: PGOV EAID UNMIK YI KV
SUBJECT: KOSOVO: PROGRESS ON MISSING PERSONS AND FORENSICS


Classified By: COM TINA KAIDANOW FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D).


1. (C) SUMMARY: Presenting a unified front, USOP, the EU
Rule of Law planning team (EUPT),UNMIK's Department of
Justice (DOJ),UNMIK's Office of Missing Persons and
Forensics (OMPF),and the International Committee of the Red
Cross (ICRC) together persuaded the Ministry of Justice to
scrap its wholly inadequate draft Law on Forensics and start
anew with a better plan. Now there will be two
forensics-related laws. The first will provide a simple
legal framework for the planned merger of the Forensics
Institute with the OMPF into a Kosovo Ministry of Justice
executive agency in a manner amenable to MoJ, OMPF, UNMIK
DoJ, and ICRC. The second law, which our U.S. DOJ/ICITAP
program will help to draft and vet, will deal with the
technical details of forensics and forensic evidence in both
the missing persons/humanitarian and criminal context. We
are pleased with this outcome and will focus on getting the
best possible legislative result in the months ahead. END
SUMMARY.


2. (SBU) Kosovo's forensics competencies have long been
scattered among various agencies, including the Ministry of
Health's Forensics Institute, the mixed UNMIK Department of
Justice-PISG Ministry of Justice OMPF, and the USG-funded,
state-of-the-art police forensics lab. In addition, Kosovo's
legal framework for protecting the chain of evidence in
criminal forensic matters is not up to international
standards for admissibility in court. As forensics
competencies are transferred from internationals to Kosovars
and from UNMIK to an EU mission, the time has come for a more
coherent system.


3. (SBU) The Ministry of Justice made an effort to cover all
the bases in its draft law on Forensics. Unfortunately, MoJ
does not have the required forensics expertise in-house, and
it also neglected to include key stakeholders such as OMPF
and ICRC in discussions of the law. To rectify the situation
before the law moved on to approval at the Prime Minister's
office or the Assembly, USOP convened a stakeholders meeting
with EUPT, ICRC, UNMIK, and OMPF to find a new approach.


4. (SBU) During the November 21 meeting, UNMIK agreed that it
would be more efficient to start again with a new forensics
law than attempt to fix the problems in the current draft.
Hopeful that this would be the outcome, we were prepared and
immediately offered ICITAP's in-house legal and forensics
expertise to assist in drafting the technical and evidentiary
aspects of a new law.


5. (C) The most politically sensitive aspect of the draft law
is the disposition of forensic capacity in Kosovo. The draft
envisions the creation of an executive agency within the
Ministry of Justice to deal with missing persons and
forensics. This would allow for the higher pay necessary to
retain local forensics experts, and the agency would be
formed by merging OMPF with the Forensics Institute (FI).
(NOTE: The FI was traditionally the locus of all forensic
capacity in Kosovo. However, in 2002, all but one FI doctor
refused to join OMPF, objecting to the training and
evaluation requirements. As a result, FI has not conducted
autopsies in five years; FI doctors teach instead. END NOTE.)


6. (C) The previous draft law put the FI in the lead and
paved the way to re-institute regressive practices, such as
the lucrative virginity tests (prior to marriage) the FI once
carried out, enforced 6- rather than 8-hour workdays, and
elimination of nurse staffing on weekends. (NOTE: Prior to
the OMPF, forensic examinations were uniformly conducted by
male doctors and only available from 8am-2pm on weekdays. A
rape victim who called on Friday afternoon would thus be
forced to wait until Monday morning before being examined.
END NOTE.) Where the previous draft law put FI staff in the
lead, we envision much-simplified language to merely create
the executive agency and get the merger underway. This will
allow all parties to sort out the politically divisive
details with administrative instructions that will not be
hashed out in Assembly committees.

PRISTINA 00000806 002 OF 002




7. (SBU) Given the scope of needed forensics legislation, it
makes more sense to separate the technical and evidentiary
forensics law from the political and organizational one, and
this was the decision taken by stakeholders in the meeting on
November 21. The same group made this proposal to outgoing
Justice Minister Salihaj on November 23; he agreed. In the
coming weeks, MoJ will send a new draft of the merger law to
all the stakeholders for comment. An ICITAP legal and
forensics expert will begin work on a new draft of the
evidentiary legislation.


8. (SBU) COMMENT: USOP is pleased with this outcome and will
focus on getting the best possible legislative result in the
months ahead. Forensics capacity is an integral part of the
process of identifying missing persons from the 1999
conflict; the resolution of the remaining 2,037 missing
persons cases is often cited by the deeply affected
communities on both the Kosovo Albanian and Serb sides as a
prerequisite for peaceful returns or any normal neighborly
relationship. This makes it a highly political and sensitive
issue, and we are eager to establish a legislative framework
to facilitate its resolution. END COMMENT.
KAIDANOW