The defense team of Hashim Thaçi identified an error in the Prosecution’s final brief, in which alleged threats attributed to Thaçi were mistakenly assigned to Jakup Krasniqi.
Prosecutor Matt Halling acknowledged the mistake, stating that in the final filing they had incorrectly attributed Krasniqi’s contribution to the alleged threats made by Thaçi.
“The defense of Mr. Thaçi, in the transcript, identified an error in our final brief where we mistakenly included Krasniqi’s contribution and confused it with the threats allegedly made by Thaçi. In other words, we should not have stated that this was a contribution made by Krasniqi,” Halling said.
Halling emphasized that the Prosecution does not claim to be immune from errors when referring to individuals and their alleged contributions, but stressed that this does not invalidate the body of judicial evidence presented.
“We do not claim that we never make mistakes when individually identifying persons in relation to their alleged contributions. However, this does not undo the entirety of the judicial evidence we have,” he stated.
Prior to this, Halling asserted that Krasniqi was a member of the General Staff, like all the other accused.
“Jakup Krasniqi was part of the General Staff, just like all the other accused,” Halling said.
The prosecutor further argued that the defendants chose to remain part of the General Staff for an extended period, during which the crimes referenced in the indictment were allegedly committed.
“They chose to remain members of the General Staff for a prolonged period while the crimes forming the basis of this case continued to be carried out, in accordance with the communications, orders, and decisions of the General Staff,” he said.
Halling added that actions taken by the General Staff entail individual criminal responsibility.
“What the General Staff did certainly carries individual responsibility. The accused do not need to be named in every single piece of evidence for us to conclude that they made a criminal contribution,” he stated.
He also rejected claims that the Prosecution focused solely on incriminating evidence while ignoring exculpatory material, stating that this characterization is untrue
