The Plot to Undermine Kosovo’s War Crimes Tribunal Continues
A staged spectacle in Kosovo aims to smear facts and silence truth. Gunpowder Chronicles exposes the network manipulating justice and public discourse through disinformation and deceit.
By The Gunpowder Chronicles Editorial Board
There is a curious theatre unfolding in Kosovo, an elaborate dance of denial, deflection, and disinformation, staged not on the dim backstreets where one might expect conspiracies to thrive, but under the bright lights of television studios and parliamentary chambers.
On 30 May 2025, Top Channel Albania1 provided a platform to two figures implicated in Gunpowder Chronicles’ recent investigative series: Artan Behrami, former adviser to Hashim Thaçi, and Edlira Qefalija, wife of the controversial media figure Milaim Zeka. Before an audience of thousands, they were invited to respond to the revelations laid bare in our reports. Yet instead of clarity, they served the public a spectacle of half-truths, circular reasoning, and a disingenuous assault on the very nature of investigative journalism.
As the producers of the series that triggered this media storm, we feel it is incumbent upon us to respond, not only to defend our reporting, but to reaffirm the essential value of evidence-based journalism at a moment when Kosovo’s fragile democracy faces a dangerous disinformation onslaught.
Theatrics over Substance
From the outset of the broadcast, Ms Qefalija’s tone was one of playful dismissal. The organogram, a visual representation of the disinformation network which we published (based on cross-verified intelligence reports, whistleblower testimony, and extensive fieldwork), was belittled as "a nice design."
"I liked the design," she quipped.
One might expect more seriousness when confronted with a detailed investigation alleging connections to witness manipulation, ties to Russian-linked actors, and attempts to undermine a war crimes tribunal. But levity, in this case, served a purpose: to trivialise the evidence and shift public attention away from its grave implications.
Let us be absolutely clear: Gunpowder Chronicles did not publish a "sketch" or a "drawing" for entertainment. The organogram distils years of intelligence gathering, verified records, and documented financial and political links between individuals actively working to delegitimise the Kosovo Specialist Chambers. No amount of mockery changes that.
Misrepresentation of Our Sources
Ms Qefalija sought to recast the origins of this investigation as merely a derivative of the whistleblower complaint by former DEA investigator John F. Moynihan. She claimed that she and her husband were mere "whistleblowers" passing on information to Moynihan, conveniently ignoring that Moynihan himself explicitly questioned the credibility of the testimonies he received from their network.
To quote from page 13 of the Moynihan report2:
“These statements lack the credibility they seem to claim.”
Moreover, Moynihan’s report was one component of a far wider body of evidence that Gunpowder Chronicles has compiled, including our own direct interviews, financial forensics, confidential law enforcement sources across Europe, and leaked intelligence documents. The suggestion that our reporting relies exclusively on Moynihan’s report is categorically false and deliberately misleading.
Deflection Through Personal Attacks
Repeatedly during the broadcast, both Ms Qefalija and Mr Behrami resorted to ad hominem attacks against Gunpowder Chronicles’ lead reporter, Vudi Xhymshiti — claiming that he was motivated by personal animus, that he was trying to “make a name” for himself, that he "worked as a translator for KFOR" and thus supposedly lacks credibility.
Such attacks are beneath any serious public discourse.
Mr Xhymshiti is a journalist of longstanding repute, whose work has appeared in The Associated Press, The Guardian, The New York Times, Der Spiegel, and other leading international outlets. The thorough, documented, and legally vetted investigations published by Gunpowder Chronicles3 stand on their own evidentiary weight, not on the personal background of one reporter. To attack the messenger is a cheap tactic used when one cannot refute the message.
False Equivalence on Whistleblowing
It was deeply disingenuous for Ms Qefalija to equate their actions with legitimate whistleblowing.
Real whistleblowers seek to expose wrongdoing for the public good, backed by verifiable evidence and motivated by the pursuit of accountability. By contrast, the individuals implicated in this investigation, including Ms Qefalija’s husband have demonstrably engaged in manufacturing lists of supposed SPO targets, pressuring witnesses, selling wartime footage to Serbian state-funded media, and conspiring with figures connected to Russian intelligence to warp the historical record and judicial processes.
No amount of rhetorical sleight-of-hand can convert this behaviour into "whistleblowing."
Minimising the Sale of Wartime Footage
Another extraordinary moment came when the broadcast referenced our reporting on Mr Zeka’s sale of KLA wartime footage to Serbian filmmaker Sladana Zaric, whose projects are financed by RTS and whose documentaries have been praised by the Serbian Ministry of Interior for promoting revisionist narratives.
Ms Qefalija made no serious attempt to rebut this evidence, instead dismissing it as old news and implying it was "just licensing."
We must remind readers: the payment was routed to her personal bank account in Tirana, bypassing normal journalistic channels. Furthermore, the footage in question was subsequently used in Zaric’s “Žuta Kuća” documentary, a propaganda piece reviving thoroughly discredited allegations of organ trafficking, dismissed by both the ICTY and the EU’s Special Investigative Task Force.
This is not “journalistic licensing.” It is collaboration with Serbian state propaganda.
Obfuscation on Grenell Links
When pressed, Mr Behrami claimed to have had only "a short meeting" with Richard Grenell in Washington4, and denied any substantive connection.
Yet intelligence sources we cited in our reports, corroborated by communications obtained during the investigation, show that figures in Thaçi’s circle deliberately cultivated Grenell as part of a transatlantic influence campaign aimed at undermining Jack Smith’s credibility and, ultimately, dismantling the Special Chambers.
Grenell’s associates have since gone to great lengths to scrub digital traces of these interactions, a curious action if they were as innocuous as Mr Behrami suggests.
The Real Purpose of the Broadcast
What, then, was the real purpose of this staged media spectacle?
It was not to refute Gunpowder Chronicles’ evidence, for they provided no substantive counter-evidence.
It was not to explain inconsistencies in their own statements, for they danced around every contradiction.
Rather, the broadcast served to blur the lines between truth and falsehood, to sow confusion among the public, and to frame legitimate journalism as part of a political plot, in this case, absurdly suggesting that Gunpowder Chronicles is somehow aligned with Vetëvendosje or acting on behalf of Jack Smith.
This is the classic playbook of disinformation networks:
Attack the journalist.
Deflect from the facts.
Invoke conspiracies.
Claim victimhood.
We have seen this script play out in Hungary, in Serbia, in Poland, and now it is being performed in Kosovo and Albania.
What the Evidence Actually Shows
For avoidance of doubt, here is what the documented evidence in our investigation has shown:
Milaim Zeka has engaged in documented witness manipulation, fabricated lists, blackmail attempts (including against Behgjet Pacolli), and sold wartime footage to Serbian state media.
Halit Sahitaj is tied to organised crime, extortion, multiple arrests, and confirmed links to Russian intelligence actors.
The network involving Zeka, Sahitaj, Behrami, and others has worked to undermine the Kosovo Specialist Chambers and delegitimise international justice processes.
Attempts to enlist Richard Grenell in this operation were real, as verified by multiple independent sources.
The funding streams, communications records, and testimony from whistleblowers and intelligence sources overwhelmingly corroborate the existence of this coordinated disinformation machine.
At Gunpowder Chronicles, we take no pleasure in exposing the sordid underbelly of Kosovo’s political-media nexus. But the truth must be told, because at stake is nothing less than the integrity of justice for victims of war crimes, and the future credibility of Kosovo as a democratic state governed by the rule of law.
Those who appeared on television this week to laugh, to smear, and to distract have offered no substantive rebuttal to the facts.
And so we stand by our reporting, every paragraph, every document, every verified source.
Kosovo deserves better than a politics of disinformation. It deserves a journalism grounded in facts, not fabrication.
We will not be silenced.
Edited by Michael Sheppard | London
The Gunpowder Chronicles Investigative Unit 🔗 .
BOMBA/“Ma kërcënuan burrin para syve”SKANDALI pas përgjimeve të dala nga Milaim Zeka — Top Channel.
The Conspiracy Against Kosovo's Justice System Unraveled
In response to manipulated attacks, we're granting free access to our latest investigative report, ensuring every reader sees the unfiltered truth. — The GPC I Unit.