Former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) leader Hashim Thaci, accused of war crimes in Kosovo and Albania in 1998-99, claimed today, before a special court in The Hague, that he is "completely innocent".
"There is only one truth: the charges against me do not stand. I am completely innocent. Based on the evidence presented, only an acquittal on all counts of the indictment is possible," said Thaci, addressing the judges at the end of the closing arguments of the prosecution and defense.
Along with Thaci, Kadri Veselji, Redžep Seljimi and Jakup Krasniqi are accused of atrocities against Serbs, Roma and Albanian "collaborators" in more than 40 detention centers in Kosovo and northern Albania.
Prosecutors last week requested that all defendants be found guilty and sentenced to 45 years in prison.
The defense then requested that the court acquit the defendants, claiming that the prosecutors had not proven their guilt.
Thaci today expressed regret and sympathy for the victims who fell in Kosovo "regardless of nationality".
He denied the indictment's allegation that he was the protagonist of a joint criminal enterprise whose goal was to take control of all of Kosovo through violence against all those whom the KLA saw as "opponents."
Thaci said that in the spring of 1998, he returned to Kosovo from Switzerland, where he was studying, because "I could not stand by while my family and my people faced extermination," because "Slobodan Milosevic's regime had a plan for genocide in Kosovo."
Thaci called the accusation that the goal of the criminal association was to violently seize control of Kosovo "meaningless and insulting" for the Albanians who died, but also for NATO and the Western powers "with whom we cooperated closely."
"My only opponent and opponent of Kosovo and the democratic world was Milosevic...Who was I supposed to take control of Kosovo from? From Milosevic, because Albanians had neither power nor authority, but were oppressed. Our mission was to survive and fight for freedom and peace," Thaci said.
The defendant emphasized that "the US and NATO were our only hope for salvation."
"Milošević started the war, we were just defending ourselves. Only NATO could have ended the war. If it hadn't been for NATO intervention, Kosovo would never have been free and independent," Thaci underlined.
He stressed that he would "never jeopardize that alliance."
According to Thaci, the KLA, contrary to the prosecution's thesis, was not an organized army but a movement of the people defending themselves from the Serbian "occupation" that lasted "90 years".
Referring to the negotiations in Rambouillet, Thaci said that the Albanian delegation "chose peace and democracy, while Serbia chose war and genocide."
Thaci also indirectly denied that, as head of the self-proclaimed interim government, he was responsible for crimes against Serb and other minorities in Kosovo in the summer of 1999, after the withdrawal of Serbian forces.
"Our goal was the freedom of Kosovo, not control over Kosovo. We accepted international control over Kosovo and handed over our weapons to NATO. The power was in the hands of UNMIK. I cooperated with them in implementing the UNMIK mandate for the benefit of the people of Kosovo," Thaci said.
He also stated that at that time he "called on the Serbs to stay in Kosovo and to create a new life together", but that there was "anger and a desire for revenge" among the Albanians.
Thaci called on judges to trust international envoys who testified that he was not guilty of war crimes, such as James Rubin, Wesley Clark and Christopher Hill.
"They were the eyes and ears of the West in Kosovo," Thaci indicated, adding that prosecutors had unfoundedly tried to portray his witnesses as uninformed.
Thaci called many of the prosecution's evidence "forgeries from the Milosevic era."
Thaci claimed that "the Russian and Serbian sides manipulated (Council of Europe special rapporteur) Dick Marty" into writing a report on KLA atrocities, on the basis of which the court in The Hague, officially called the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, was established.
"We established this court to deal with Dick Marty's allegations (of human organ trafficking), but nothing came of it," Thaci said.
In the continuation of today's session, co-defendants Veselji, Seljimi and Krasniqi will address the judges.
According to court rules, the verdict for the four former KLA leaders will be handed down within 90 days of the conclusion of closing arguments. If the judges need more time to decide, the deadline for pronouncing the verdict can be extended by another 60 days.
All defendants have pleaded not guilty. They have been in custody in The Hague since their arrests in Kosovo on November 4 and 5, 2020.
The trial of Thaci and the co-accused began before the court in The Hague on April 3, 2023, and the prosecutors finished their evidentiary proceedings on April 15 of this year.
The Kosovo Specialized Councils were established in 2015 by the Kosovo Assembly under international pressure caused by Dick Marty's report on KLA crimes in Kosovo and Albania, published in 2011.
The court is formally part of the Kosovo justice system, but operates in The Hague. In its judgments and other documents, the court has found that there is a persistent climate of intimidation and harassment of witnesses in Kosovo against accused members of the former KLA.
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