How a Press Freedom Icon Became a Political Actor
Flutura Kusari built a reputation defending press freedom. Now, she stands accused of using that same power to silence a citizen who challenged her.
In Kosovo’s turbulent post-independence political landscape, where trust in institutions is fragile and the line between advocacy and partisanship often blurs, one of the loudest voices claiming to defend press freedom is now accused of trying to silence it.
Flutura Kusari, a senior legal adviser with the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) and a member of the CASE Coalition’s anti-SLAPP steering committee, has built her reputation on protecting journalists from abusive lawsuits designed to stifle criticism. But recent developments surrounding her failed criminal complaint against Kosovar citizen Mentor Llugaliu call into question the very foundation of her credibility.
Earlier this week, the Basic Prosecution Office in Prishtina dismissed Kusari’s complaint against Llugaliu, who had posted critical commentary about her on social media. The case, rooted in claims of “harassment,” was flatly rejected. Prosecutors concluded that there had been no contact, no threat, and no criminal act, a matter, not one fit for criminal prosecution under Kosovo’s Criminal Code, Law No. 06/L-0741.
According to the law, Article 182 on “Stalking” requires clear evidence of repeated conduct that causes genuine fear or threatens a person’s sense of safety. The threshold is high, and rightly so. None of it applied in this case. One of the supposed transgressions, Llugaliu referring to Kusari by the satirical nickname “Mickoja,” was not found to be criminal in any way.
This was not a case of harassment. It was a public figure attempting to use the courts to silence someone who disagreed with her.
But what made the case even more alarming was the manner in which Kusari leveraged her international standing. As a lawyer for press freedom, her affiliation with anti-SLAPP initiatives implies a moral and professional responsibility to resist the misuse of legal systems. Instead, she used her platform, and the institutional weight of her position to pressure prosecutors, to brand her critic as politically dangerous, and to demand legal action where none was warranted.
On June 20, 2025, the day she filed her lawsuit2, Kusari pushed the unsubstantiated claim that Llugaliu was a member of the ruling party Vetëvendosje (LVV), a claim later repeated through media platforms linked to Kosovo’s political old guard entities long accused of enabling Serbia’s presence in Kosovo during the post-war years and profiting off entrenched corruption. That affiliation raises not just political eyebrows but ethical alarm bells.
Before the prosecution had even reviewed her complaint against Mentor Llugaliu, Flutura Kusari launched a coordinated campaign of international endorsements, enlisting support from organisations such as IFEX, Index on Censorship, the International Press Institute (IPI), and her own ECPMF. These statements, which framed her personal criminal complaint as a global press freedom issue, were not spontaneous acts of solidarity, they were orchestrated by Kusari herself, then amplified through her social media channels. The timing was no coincidence: she submitted these endorsements in parallel with her lawsuit in an apparent attempt to pressure Kosovo’s prosecution into taking her side. It was a pre-emptive move, designed not to uphold justice, but to shape its outcome. By weaponising respected foreign institutions to legitimise her claim and silence dissent, Kusari blurred the line between advocacy and intimidation exploiting international credibility to manipulate a domestic legal process.
A Voice for the Past: How Flutura Kusari Shields Kosovo’s Old Guard While Attacking Its Future
Kusari presents herself as a legal advocate. But her record reveals a clear and deliberate pattern: attacking the LVV-led government at every opportunity, regardless of the facts.
In September 2023, as Serbian paramilitaries launched a Kremlin-style armed attack in Banjska, killing a Kosovo police officer, Kusari astonishingly used the moment not to condemn the Serbian-backed assault, but to blame Kosovo’s government, accusing it of “dangerous experiments.” At a time when the nation should have unified in the face of external aggression, she chose to target her own institutions.
In June 2025, she did it again. This time, it was over the unbearable heat inside the Palace of Justice. Rather than criticise inefficiency or institutional overlap, she blamed the Minister of Interior and accused the LVV government of trying to undermine judicial independence. She turned a basic infrastructure problem into another political assault.
The pattern is clear: when Kosovo’s reformist government is in question, Kusari reaches for a microphone. When Serbia or the oligarchs are involved, she disappears.
This is not legal advocacy. This is political warfare dressed in legal jargon. And it serves a clear purpose: to shield the corrupt warlords and political clans that robbed Kosovo for decades and now seek to regain their hold.
Her silence in moments that matter speaks volumes. When journalist Jeta Xharra won a major SLAPP case against Devolli Corporation3, long linked to Kosovo’s political and economic elite, Flutura Kusari said nothing. No tweet. No article. No statement. Her close ties to Kushtrim Gojani4, owner of KLAN Kosova and a figure connected to the Devolli network, raise further questions about her neutrality.
At least three KLAN Kosova employees told Gunpowder Chronicles, under condition of anonymity due to fear of losing their jobs, that Kusari has a close personal and professional relationship with Gojani. A fourth shared a photo of the two together during the time the government was pressing KLAN Kosova to align its registration with Kosovo’s constitutional order. According to a KALLXO.com investigation, Gojani operates KLAN Kosova from within the “Central Park” complex—property linked to the Devolli brothers and at the center of serious allegations of corruption, illegal land expansion, and political favoritism. Sources also said Kusari knows that even some moderators feel uneasy reading scripts seen as echoing Serbian propaganda—but she stays silent. Her selective voice, loud in theory but quiet in practice, casts doubt on her claims of defending press freedom.
The Anatomy of a Hypocrisy
If Kusari’s job is to protect freedom of speech, her actions against Llugaliu represent a betrayal of that mission. Her response5 to the court’s dismissal of her case was not measured or reflective. It was combative, accusatory, and designed to cast doubt on the integrity of the judiciary.
She publicly suggested the prosecutors had failed, not on legal grounds, but because they didn’t embrace her personal version of justice. That is not only professionally irresponsible; it is an attempt to intimidate a judicial body using public shame and reputational pressure.
She continues to frame Llugaliu as a partisan actor, despite having no proof and despite the court ruling that he committed no crime. She insists his 101 posts were harassment, when they were in fact just criticism, criticism that the legal system has already ruled to be within the bounds of free speech.
The contradiction could not be clearer. A woman who campaigns internationally against SLAPPs has deployed the very same tools, legal complaints, political smears, and institutional pressure against a citizen who dared to publicly disagree with her.
This is the SLAPP playbook:
File a criminal case to punish dissent.
Smear the target politically to isolate them.
Use public platforms and elite status to build pressure.
Attack the legal system when it doesn’t comply.
The Real Cost of Silence
The consequences of this conduct go far beyond one citizen’s ordeal. When someone in Kusari’s position uses her international authority to pursue a personal vendetta, she does real damage to the causes she claims to champion. She undermines trust in legal institutions, discredits genuine press freedom work, and empowers those who treat the law as a weapon rather than a shield.
The Basic Prosecution Office in Prishtina was clear: no harassment, no intimidation, no crime. That ruling should have ended the story. But Kusari continues to vilify Llugaliu, keeping his name tarnished in the public sphere even after the justice system has already cleared him.
Her behaviour is not that of a victim. It is that of a bully in professional disguise.
For someone who wears the banner of “anti-SLAPP” as a badge of honour, Flutura Kusari has, in this instance, become the very example of the abuse she claims to fight.
That, in Kosovo’s fragile democracy, is not just hypocrisy.
It is sabotage.
CODE NR. 06/L-074 — RKS Official Gazette.
Flutura Kusari’s Criminal Complaint Against Mentor Llugaliu – March 21, 2025 [Downloadable Archived File]
BIRN Wins Landmark SLAPP Case Against Devolli Corporation — Prishtina Insight.
EKSKLUZIVE: Pronari i “Klan Kosova” hap kompani në Novi Sad me dokumente të Serbisë. Liçencohet si operator kabllor me emrin “Art Motion Platforma” — Kosova News.
Flutura Kusari’s Facebook Post of July 1, 2025.