Bardhyl Çaushi

Bardhyl Çaushi (1936–1999) was a Kosovo Albanian human rights lawyer and activist. Highly active in cases of human rights abuses in Kosovo, Çaushi was the dean of the school of law of the University of Pristina and the first head of the Independent Jurists of Kosovo. During the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia he was abducted by Yugoslav forces and held in prisons in Serbia. Çaushi's state was unknown until 2005 when his remains were found and identified. His body was returned to Kosovo, where he was reburied with presidential honours.

Born in Đakovica, Kingdom of Yugoslavia (present-day Kosovo) on 15 August 1936, Bardhyl Çaushi studied law in Skopje. He served as district court judge of Peć and head judge of Đakovica. Çaushi started his academic career as professor of Roman law at the University of Pristina and eventually became dean of the school of law of the university.

In 1992 he was a member of the group of lawyers which defended Albanian civilians accused among others of "association for the purpose of carrying out hostile activities". Human rights organisations like HRW reported that the defendants were denied due process and their arrests and trials were possibly linked to ethnicity or political beliefs. During the case the lawyers asserted that like many other trials of Albanians, that particular one was another show trial with political purposes.

In 1999 Çaushi was abducted in his hometown by Yugoslav troops. His fate was unknown although human rights organisations feared him dead. His body was found and identified in a mass grave in 2005 in Serbia. He was reburied on 30 September 2005 in his hometown and posthumously awarded the "Golden Medal of Independence" by Kosovan President Ibrahim Rugova.