In four days of testimony at the Hague trial for former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci and three co-accused of war crimes, Sylejman Selimi said the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) General Staff “was not functional”.
The defense is seeking to prove that the KLA did not have a rigid command structure like a normal army, and so the defendants were not responsible for crimes committed by lower-ranking fighters.
According to him, commanders lacked logistical support and weapons and were often not aware where members of the General Staff were.
In May 2015, Selimi was found guilty of torturing a civilian prisoner at an improvised KLA detention center in the village of Likovc/Likovac in Skenderaj/Srbica municipality in 1998 and early 1999.
He was jailed for eight years by the Mitrovica Basic Court. The Appeals Court in Pristina cut his sentence to seven years in October 2016.
The KLA’s wartime “Drenica Group” was the source of many of Kosovo’s postwar political leaders, including Hashim Thaci.
The Specialist Chambers are part of Kosovo’s judicial system but are located in The Hague and staffed by internationals, established under pressure from the country’s Western allies who believed Kosovo’s own justice system was not robust enough to try KLA cases and protect witnesses from intimidation.
Many Kosovo Albanians believe the court is ethnically biased and denigrates the KLA’s just war against Serbian repression.
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