Pierre-Richard Prosper, a member of the defense team representing former Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi, said on Klan Kosovo’s Rubikon that the verdict against the former KLA leaders in The Hague was entirely politically influenced and predetermined.
According to Prosper, the Trial Panel ignored key credible evidence, including NATO intelligence reports and a May 1999 letter from the U.S. State Department, which, he said, demonstrated that the KLA did not have a clear chain of command and control and that Thaçi and the other defendants did not have the ability to issue instructions to people on the ground.
“We had reliable, credible information from the entire NATO intelligence apparatus, from NATO member states and from other countries, which made it clear that there was no organization, command and control within the KLA. They made it clear that President Thaçi and the others were not responsible and therefore did not have the ability to give instructions to people on the ground,” Thaçi’s lawyer said.
Arguing that the proceedings were biased, Prosper said that the defense had filed 44 appeals and had not won a single one, while the prosecution had prevailed in all of its appeals. He also claimed that the judges behaved like prosecutors.
Prosper described the proceedings as unlike anything he had encountered during his legal career and argued that the outcome had been politically driven.
