A growing number of Kosovan politicians are mobilising in an attempt to have the Special Court for war crimes abolished before it makes its first indictments, as they fear political leaders in the country will face charges.

The court will prosecute alleged war crimes committed by members of the former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) against ethnic Serbs during Kosovo's independence war in 1998-99. It was set up in 2015 in The Hague but will work under Kosovo's jurisdiction.

The KLA was a paramilitary organisation that sought the separation of Kosovo from Yugoslavia during the 1990s and the eventual creation of a Greater Albania. Among its former members are top politicians including President Hashim Thaci and Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj,

Former senior KLA members who are now in politics are expected to be indicted by the new court, and its president Ekaterina Trendafilova has stressed that there will be no immunity from prosecution.

43 of Kosovo’s 120 MPs, all from the governing PAN coalition, sent a request to the parliament in December asking for an extraordinary session to abolish the law that allows the Special Court to operate. This came after a group of KLA veterans signed a petition claiming the law establishing the court was discriminatory. However, the parliament failed to convene late on December 22 due to the lack of quorum and the boycott by opposition MPs, and is now officially in winter recess until January 15.

All three members of the PAN coalition are headed by former KLA fighters, and their wish to stop the court becoming operational is understood to have been the main factor bringing the three parties together ahead of the 2017 election. The initiative to abolish the law on the special court was spearheaded by Nait Hasani, a MP from the ruling Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), which was set up by Thaci and other ex-KLA leaders.

Thaci has said he will sign the document that will abolish the previous law on establishing the court, saying that “the initiative of the deputies should be understood as an alternative and not as a challenge to justice or an attempt to escape from justice.”

The opposition Vetevendosje party has also said it will vote for the court to be abolished.

Other politicians, meanwhile, say the court will become operational as there is no force to stop it. They include PDK leader and parliament speaker Kadri Veseli, who wrote a column in Gazeta Express saying that the Special Court is “clearly detrimental to Kosovo”, but it will go ahead, as Kosovo has no power to stop it.

Veseli added that there are hundreds of arguments that speak against the court.

“It is injustice that is being done in the name of justice!” he wrote.

After Kosovan lawmakers launched their initiative to abolish the court, the EU and US reacted strongly, saying that such a move will be harmful for Kosovo’s future.

The US ambassador in Kosovo, Greg Delawie, warned that such a move will have extremely negative implications and Kosovo will stay isolated.

“This will be seen as a stab in the back to the United States,” Delawie said.

Ambassadors from other foreign countries also strongly condemned the move and warned of serious consequences for Pristina.

Trendafilova said in November that the Kosovan special war crimes court is ready to proceed with its first indictments, but she did not specify when the first indictments would be filed.

”There is no immunity for anyone regardless of their position, and amnesty also cannot apply,” Trendafilova said at the time.