Former US Assistant Secretary of State James Rubin, who is testifying in the case of former President Hashim Thaçi and other former KLA leaders at the Special Court in The Hague, said he has been preparing for this moment for years. A prosecutor asked him about his meetings with Thaçi’s defense and reminded him that he said he had prepared “for hundreds of hours” to be a witness in this case. “Can you tell us what you did in those hundreds of hours, witness?” the prosecutor asked.
Rubin, among other things, said that he received permission from the US State Department to testify in Thaçi's defense. "I have been very busy in my profession, in my work. I was also an advisor to Mr. Blinken from 2022-2025 and I have to say that for my own desire, to be available in court. I also spent many hours making sure that the State Department allowed me to testify. It was really an added burden for me," he said.
The experienced American diplomat said that he started thinking about the Special Court early on and that he has been waiting for years for the trial to begin. “Five or six years ago I first started hearing about this trial, I started looking at the formation, the composition of this tribunal. Because it was created, I talked to academics, I talked to lawyers, I also tried to review, to examine to the best of my knowledge the written articles or documents that are presented on the screen, which are easily displayed here, but have not been easily displayed to me. I reread a lot of the materials or articles, I also met with the defense team in Washington, maybe once, or maybe twice, I met for a full day once or two full days, I thought, I spent five years talking, thinking about this, preparing. I thought year after year that the trial would open today, it would open tomorrow, while the years went by and nothing happened for many years. So, for years I thought about this, I read about this, I wondered why it took five years to create such a case, while the indictment is built five years ago."
Rubin said that eminent international lawyers and advocates have told him that it was unusual how Thaçi was arrested and taken into custody, while his trial began many years later.
"I didn't understand all this and I asked people in this field, people in this industry. I told them if such a thing was normal or not. I spoke to lawyers, with internationally renowned lawyers who told me that this is an unusual way to treat a statesman who voluntarily surrendered himself to the jurisdiction of the court he created himself when he was prime minister and to show European leaders that he wanted his country to become part of the EU. Meanwhile, this statesman is being detained for five years before the case was ready," he said.
