A Kosovo Albanian Found Guilty of Ethnic Hatred

Esmin Hamza was given a suspended two-year prison sentence by the District Court of Prizren, Kosovo, for inciting national and racial hatred against the Kosovo Serbs. The prison sentence will be applied if Hamza commits a new criminal offence in the next five years.

The defendant was found guilty for his actions during the March 2004 riots, in the city of Prizren, south-eastern Kosovo.

“On March 18, 2004, the defendant Esmin Hamza committed arson and publicly spread hatred, discord or intolerance against the Serbian ethnic group living in Kosovo. A day earlier, he also set fire to some UNMIK, UN Mission to Kosovo, vehicles,” states the verdict.

Violent unrest broke out in Kosovo on March 17, 2004, when ethnic Albanians attacked Serb enclaves in what became the worst inter-ethnic violence since the 1999 war.

The riots resulted in the deaths of eleven Albanians and eight Serbs, and over 1,000 people from both communities being injured, while some 730 houses belonging to Kosovo Serbs, as well as 35 Orthodox churches, monasteries and other religious monuments were damaged.

According to UNMIK, who then administered Kosovo, about 60,000 Kosovo Albanians took part in the riots. More than 100 members of NATO Kosovo-Force and UN police were injured, while 72 vehicles of the international forces were set on fire.

Kosovo Judicial Institute’s last report on the March 2004 riots, issued in 2010, shows that 143 Kosovo Albanian were convicted, of which 67 received prison terms longer than a year.