Michael Durkee testifying on the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, November 13, 2025. Photograph: KSC/Livestream.
Michael Durkee, former political adviser to the NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, Wesley Clark, informed the Kosovo Specialist Chambers warfare crimes court docket on Thursday that Hashim Thaci didn’t have “the competency or the authority” to cease violence carried out by Kosovo Liberation Military, KLA members or others searching for “revenge” after the warfare resulted in 1999.
“There was completely no command construction he may use to cease the violence,” Durkee informed the Hague trial of Thaci and three co-defendants,.
“We had this impression that there was no strong construction or consolidated chain of command [in the KLA], for somebody to have a high-level place in Pristina and provides orders, which may then result in sure actions or operations within the operational zones,” he stated.
“The [KLA] operational zone commanders had appreciable autonomy and there was willingness on their aspect to behave on their very own once they noticed acceptable … So, there was no consolidated chain of command within the sense of direct coordination like we see in Western armies,” he added.
Thaci and his co-defendants Jakup Krasniqi, Rexhep Selimi and Kadri Veseli are accused of getting particular person and command duty for crimes dedicated in opposition to prisoners held at KLA detention services in Kosovo and in neighbouring Albania, together with 102 murders. The crimes have been allegedly dedicated throughout and simply after the warfare in 1998 and 1999.
The boys’s attorneys declare that the defendants can’t be held accountable for the alleged crimes of lower-ranking fighters as a result of the KLA was a grassroots motion, with decision-making coming from commanders on the bottom. However prosecutors insist the KLA management had efficient management.
In accordance with Durkee, in spring 1999, in addition to violence by official Serbian forces, there have been paramilitary teams that had emerged among the many Serb inhabitants in Kosovo.
“In lots of locations, these native Serb residents have been offering data as to the place Serbian forces needs to be concentrated … largely directed by [the Serbian] Ministry of Inner Affairs,” he stated,
“I imagine it’s comprehensible that they then had a need for revenge as a result of they felt betrayed and victimized by individuals who had grown up with them,” he added.
Requested to substantiate stories by worldwide organisations akin to Human Rights Watch of alleged crimes dedicated by the KLA, Durkee stated he didn’t keep in mind particular stories, however “I keep in mind that [the NATO peacekeeping mission in Kosovo] KFOR reported by way of common data channels that there have been incidents the place the KLA was not respecting the circumstances and there have been acts of violence in opposition to numerous individuals”.
Durkee informed the court docket that regardless of missing the ability to cease acts of revenge, Thaci was amongst those that referred to as for a multi-ethnic Kosovo, recalling a speech Thaci gave in 1999, calling for an finish to the violence.
The Kosovo Specialist Chambers are a part of Kosovo’s justice system however are based mostly in The Hague with a world workers to make sure truthful proceedings after witness intimidation issues in earlier KLA-related instances.
Many prosecution witnesses have testified behind closed doorways to guard their identities resulting from fears of reprisals, however this has led to allegations of an absence of transparency.
Many ethnic Albanians and KLA supporters insist that the proceedings have been unfair to the defendants and have protested in opposition to them in The Hague, Pristina, and in Tirana, Albania.
