Former U.S. diplomat Christopher Hill has completed his testimony in the trial against former KLA leaders at The Hague, KosovaPress reports.
During his testimony at the Special Court, he said that he had the impression that Hashim Thaçi was a trustworthy interlocutor, but not a decision-maker within the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Hill said his impression was that Thaçi was trusted to present the KLA’s arguments at Rambouillet, but he was not entrusted with decision-making power.
When asked by the judges how he explained that Thaçi took on such a significant role within the KLA and later in the Provisional Government of Kosovo, despite being a student, Hill said he had no explanation for that.
He explained why he believed Thaçi was not a decision-maker in the KLA, sharing details from the Rambouillet talks, where, according to him, Thaçi had said that if an agreement were reached without consulting others, “he would be killed when he returned to Kosovo.”
“I have no explanation, but I have thoughts that might conflict with each other. One of them is that perhaps he was not as powerful as he appeared from the outside, because ultimately every decision he made came as a result of many prior consultations. So my impression was that he was a trustworthy interlocutor but not a decision-maker. This impression made sense when he told us that he could not agree on what was done at Rambouillet and when he told us that if an agreement was reached without consultation, he would be killed when he returned. A decision-maker would not make a comment of that kind. Personally, I understood that he was trusted to gather information but not entrusted with decision-making. Decision-making was not left in his hands,” he said.
Hill also reaffirmed that he could not say whether Thaçi was one of the founders of the KLA.
“I cannot say whether Mr. Thaçi was one of the founders of the KLA or not. What I can say is that at that time, we thought that someone who was only 31 years old and had lived in Western Europe could not have been the founder of anything. However, I cannot say whether that assumption is true or not,” he emphasized.
It should be noted that Hashim Thaçi, Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi, and Rexhep Selimi have been in detention since November 2020. The former KLA leaders are accused of alleged war crimes, to which they have all pleaded not guilty.
