The testimony of a former senior US diplomat in the defense of former Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi on Monday before the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague was seen as crucial and decisive in favor of the defense of former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commanders. James Rubin, a former US assistant secretary of state, as the first witness for Thaçi’s defense, said that he did not have full authority over KLA commanders.
"It was clear to me that he was not in charge. He did not have the knowledge, skills or authority to make decisions in any way," Rubin told the court on Monday.
Thaçi is being tried at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague, along with three other former Kosovo Liberation Army leaders, Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi, for war crimes and crimes against humanity – charges they have vehemently denied. Rubin also testified that there was no information linking Thaçi or the other defendant, Jakup Krasniqi, to the allegations of murder or execution.
What were the reactions?
The leader of the Democratic Party of Kosovo, Memli Krasniqi, said of Rubin's testimony that "a great friend from across the Atlantic is testifying" in The Hague.
“This is clear evidence, based on indisputable facts, of the justice of our liberation war, of its goals and the efforts of our liberators for peace and freedom, rejecting all the accusations of the Prosecutor’s Office against them,” Krasniqi wrote on Facebook. Krasniqi, who now leads the party that for years after the 1998-99 war was led by Thaçi and then Veseli – added that “with the United States at our side, and no other way, Kosovo has always triumphed over the greatest injustices and challenges!” Rubin is a former assistant secretary of state for public information issues and chief spokesman for Madeleine Albright when she was secretary of state in the Clinton administration. He was with Albright at the peace talks in France in 1999 and later served as a special negotiator in the talks on the disarmament of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Rubin described Thaçi before the court as a "political figurehead" with no real power.
Political analyst Agon Maliqi wrote on Facebook that Rubin's testimony "is an extremely important historical document that overturns many propaganda narratives."
"He dismantles the prosecution's main argument, which every person in Kosovo with a sense of reason knows, that the KLA had a consolidated central structure or was capable of directing violence and crimes in a systematic manner," Maliqi stressed.
According to him, the testimony of the former senior American diplomat "gives a picture of a decentralized and chaotic group operating in the circumstances of confronting a state with extermination plans that materialized in Bosnia - a key context that the prosecution completely ignores, almost as if the KLA went to the mountains to control territory at will."
He believes that his testimony based on intelligence reports also “does not attempt to deny the existence of sporadic crimes against civilians, but disputes the idea that it was organized and hints – I would say accurately – that it was more a product of chaos and lack of control, and also points out that there was also propaganda from Belgrade.”
"It is clear that the crimes documented by the prosecution were more of local settling of scores or revenge attacks, and that their victims deserve justice. But the Special Prosecution has clearly lost the address of this responsibility by trying to build a political accusation, thus producing a double injustice," Maliqi concluded.
For the director of the Kosovar Institute for Policy Research and Development (KIPRED), Lulëzim Peci, Rubin's testimony as a defense witness for former President Thaçi was not "just simple judicial testimony!"
"This testimony is also a first-hand public lecture on the modern history of Kosovo, the visionary leadership of Albanians, the KLA's war and its journey towards independence!" Peci wrote on Facebook.
The KLA War Veterans Organization, in a Facebook post, said it feels grateful and appreciative for Rubin's presence and willingness to testify at the Specialist Chambers in The Hague.
"His clear, fair, and truth-based testimony is further evidence of the United States' continued support for Kosovo, particularly during our liberation war and in defense of the values of the KLA," she said.
The trial of the four former KLA commanders began in 2023. Thaçi was the KLA's political leader before and during the 1998-99 war, Veseli was the head of the KLA's intelligence service, Krasniqi was its spokesman, and Selimi was among the general staff. The indictment against them includes charges of illegal detention, torture, murder, crimes against humanity, enforced disappearance and persecution of hundreds of civilians and people who did not want to take part in the fighting. Several other witnesses are expected to testify in defense of the former KLA commanders, in addition to Rubin, who will return to the witness stand on Tuesday. The defense of the defendants told Radio Free Europe last week that the list of those who will testify on their side is confidential. However, several names circulated in the media – among them: Wesley Clark, William Walker, Bernard Kouchner and others. The same were also mentioned in a list that the defense revealed in 2022.
The Special Court expects the trial against former KLA leaders to be concluded by the end of December.
