Rexhep Selimi’s defense continues presenting counterarguments in The Hague. Selimi’s lawyer, Eric Tully, said the Prosecution has made no effort to prove that the Ministry of Public Order, led by Selimi, was a structure capable of exercising operational control over a police force across the country.

“The SPO has not done even the minimum to verify the complex organizational charts it presented. At no point did the SPO attempt to link the charts to actual names. It has produced no evidence proving that these charts were real or accurate, nor made any effort to show that Selimi was in charge. The SPO has not tried to prove that the Ministry of Public Order, led by Selimi, was a structure capable of operational control over a nationwide police force. Therefore, this argument does not hold and is entirely unsupported. The absence of such documents itself is evidence that no well-organized Ministry of Public Order existed,” he said.

Selimi’s lawyer also told the court that no orders or instructions were ever issued by his client.

“Consider the importance of the role of a country’s operational police chief in a post-conflict situation in Kosovo in June 1999. This would have been a Herculean task. At a minimum, we would expect orders or instructions from this operational commander to subordinates—but we have seen none. No example of any order or instruction, at any time, to any police unit, in any part of Kosovo was issued by Selimi, or on his behalf,” Tully said.

Lawyer Eric Tully added that the only witness who claimed to have knowledge of orders issued by Selimi in his capacity as Minister of Public Order was witness 04 748, whom even his own family described as a liar.

“The only witness called by the SPO claiming knowledge of specific orders issued by Selimi in his role as Minister of Public Order was witness 04 748, who was described by his own family as a liar. This was a person who was not even in the KLA at the time, let alone part of the Ministry of Public Order. He had no understanding of how the KLA functioned back then. He falsely claimed knowledge of secret agreements between KFOR and the Police, and despite his speculations regarding orders allegedly issued by Selimi, he admitted during cross-examination that he had no personal knowledge of any orders received by the Police in the summer of 1999,” Tully said.