The President of the Assembly of EULEX judges, Maria Giuliana Civinini, has said that EULEX criminal judges will by the end of this year/beginning of next year bring all criminal cases inherited from UNMIK judges for trial.

“This is a real achievement made together in cooperation with local judges and it shows the benefit for EULEX of working in an integrated way with the local judiciary rather than as a separate international judiciary” said Civinini during a presentation to media in Kosovo. Some of the inherited case files from UNMIK concern incidents which happened more than ten years ago and some of the files are in a poor condition.

After the EULEX judges took over the criminal cases the first two months of operation were allocated to assessing  the cases before they could be brought for trial. EULEX criminal judges took over approximately 200 criminal cases from UNMIK judges. These complex criminal cases included preliminary and pre-trial investigations, indictments, trials, appeals, extraordinary legal remedies and re-trials. The charges in these criminal cases vary from war crimes to money laundering, organized crime, acts of terrorism, accepting bribes, etc.