Retired U.S. General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO in Europe, has reacted to the verdict of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague, which sentenced four former KLA leaders to a combined 81 years in prison.
Speaking to A2 CNN’s “Off the Record,” he said he was shocked by the Hague verdict and that he had seen no evidence that would justify such a decision.
According to Clark, the road ahead will now be a difficult one.
“I am shocked and angry. I know Thaçi and his colleagues, and all those who fought in the war. I testified in court and explained what I had seen. I knew what was happening in Kosovo and about our cooperation with the KLA, and I have seen no evidence that would justify this kind of decision. Unfortunately, the Court has issued its verdict, and this will be a difficult road ahead,” the general said.
Asked whether anything in the judges’ findings corresponded with what he had personally witnessed, he said that Hashim Thaçi had done an excellent job of protecting the innocent Serbian population.
“As far as I know, these secret testimonies—which the prosecution itself never showed me any evidence from—would not have changed my mind. I met Hashim Thaçi three times during the conflict and at Rambouillet. Of course, I met him when I was in Kosovo, but the KLA and what was happening there was a rebellion against an authoritarian regime—and not only an authoritarian regime, but also against numerous individual crimes committed by individual Serbs against their Albanian neighbors.”
“And as I explained in court, there was, and there still is, a great deal of emotion among people who had known one another. Albanians felt betrayed by their Serbian neighbors with whom they had lived side by side for years. But, of course, there were strong feelings, and I thought Hashim Thaçi did an excellent job of protecting the innocent Serbian population, including those living north of the Ibar River, as Albanians were being pushed farther south. So, I had concerns about what might happen going forward, but I could not say that Thaçi was someone who should be convicted of war crimes,” Clark said.
The Specialist Chambers sentenced Hashim Thaçi and Jakup Krasniqi to 25 years in prison each, Kadri Veseli to 18 years, and Rexhep Selimi to 13 years.
The four former KLA leaders were convicted of war crimes, including unlawful or arbitrary detention, cruel treatment, torture, and unlawful killing.
However, they were acquitted of crimes against humanity, as the prosecution failed to establish that they had carried out attacks against the civilian population. The defendants were also acquitted in relation to a number of alleged war-crime incidents.
