How much would the conviction of Thaci and other KLA leaders for war crimes be a problem for the West and NATO?

The beginning of the trial of the leaders of the KLA before the Special Court in The Hague, and especially the defense of the accused, brought to the fore the political dimension of this process and raised the question of whether and how much the verdicts for Hashim Thaci, Jakup Krasniqi, Rexhep Selimi, and Kadri Veseli for war crimes would be a problem for The West and NATO. The well-known German journalist Michael Martens presented the thesis that the Thaci verdict could mean that NATO had waged war in Serbia in 1999 with the help of a war criminal, and the interlocutors we talked to shared a similar view.

In a series of posts on Twitter and an author's text for "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung", of which Martens is the correspondent for Southern Europe, he opened several dilemmas, first of all "is the process against Thaci actually a process against NATO" and "what does it have to do with the fact that Thaci is being defended by a dream team of lawyers", in which 16 million euros were invested from the budget of the Pristina government and who knows how many more millions from other sources.

All this is followed by the opening words of the defense of the accused and their lawyers, where Thaci, in particular, insisted on cooperation with the Western officials of the time, who played a major role in the creation of Kosovo's independence, and stated that some of them, such as Madeleine Albright and Richard Holbrooke, would not to be able to testify to his innocence because they were no longer among the living.

Thaci's lawyer, Gregory Kehoe, also said that he had invited international figures who had had ties to Kosovo to be witnesses in court, such as NATO General Wesley Clark and Ambassador Bernard Kouchner. There were also reminders of the words of the current US President Joseph Biden, who at one time called the former Kosovo president and KLA commander "George Washington of Kosovo".

Interlocutors of Kosovo Online, professor of international law Tibor Varady, professor of international relations Srdjan Perisic, and lawyer Branislav Tapuskovic say that Martens' questions hit right "on target", but they have different views on the possible political consequences for the West and NATO; if the court in The Hague convicts former KLA leaders, as members of a joint criminal enterprise, convicted of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Professor of international law and former legal representative of the FRY before the International Court of Justice, Tibor Varadi, tells Kosovo Online that the verdict against the KLA leaders in The Hague would certainly be an argument against the NATO intervention, which, he reminds, was not approved by the United Nations either.

"The NATO intervention was justified by the fact that the Albanians in Kosovo were to be defended, but the bridges in Novi Sad were also destroyed, which did nothing bad to the Albanians in Kosovo, just as the synagogue that was bombed, or the building of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Also, in the case of the conviction of the leader of the KLA, the argument that the NATO intervention was a response to some Serbian atrocities would be even more diminished by the fact that there were also wrongdoings on the Albanian side," Varady says.

When asked whether the fact that the conviction of the KLA chiefs could harm the West and NATO meant that Thaci and the others had a greater chance of being released, Varady says that this can only be speculated.

"As a lawyer, I cannot have an opinion on whether they are guilty or not, that can only be reached after studying the records, but I can say that politics has always been a burden for the law. Real lawyers can free themselves from that burden. A few days ago, an incredibly important, prominent lawyer, Ben Ferencz, died, he was 103 years old and he was a Nuremberg prosecutor, I had the honor of knowing him, I once arranged for him to give a lecture at SANU, and he said that justice could be achieved only if everyone joined the International Criminal Court, both America and Russia, which is not the case now. Ferencz died on Good Friday after the Catholic Easter, he will not be resurrected, but if his ideas could be resurrected, it would be of great importance. And these processes that are being conducted in relation to Albanians accused of having committed crimes are a chance for justice," Varady says.

The fact that Thaci and his defenders insisted that Western officials had closely cooperated with the Kosovo leaders at the time, Varadi sees as a kind of warning from the accused to the West that they can be "inconvenient witnesses for them".

"It is conceivable that it is a warning, a threat, but for now we can only speculate about all that," Varady says.

He points out that the most important thing in everything is that the law wins - if there is a chance for it.

"I support the law. And I think that the law should be separated from the nationality of the perpetrators. Because there is no doubt that there are Serbs who have committed crimes, as well as Hungarians, Americans, Albanians, Germans, Ukrainians, and Russians. They should be brought to justice and condemn those who have really done something, regardless of which group, nation, or religion they belong to," Varady says.

Professor of international relations and former officer Srdjan Perisic tells Kosovo Online that it is possible that Thaci and the others will not be convicted, as this could pose a problem for the West and NATO.

"Precisely for these reasons, which the conviction of Thaci and others could mean that the West and NATO collaborated with war criminals, they must not allow themselves that crack in their own ranks, especially not at a time when the Western bloc is trying to establish unity against Russia in Ukraine. The West does not need any 'stain', and that is how the conviction against the leaders of the KLA could be interpreted. And that "stain" would be a big crack in the monolith they are trying to create in their bloc," Perisic says.

He states that it is possible that one of the KLA leaders currently on trial in The Hague will be convicted, but he does not believe that it will be Thaci.

"I repeat, while this global conflict continues, the West does not need any crack in its own ranks, and the leaders of the KLA are in a way their camp. I think it is unlikely that while the Russian-Ukrainian conflict continues, the leaders of the KLA can be convicted. Maybe they will be convicted in the first instance, but in my opinion, it will all end in acquittals. The conviction of Thaci and others would not be a problem for the West if international relations were more peaceful. But now, in this context of relations, that verdict would be a big coup and why would they do that to themselves. And we know that the Specialized Chambers for Kosovo in The Hague are under their control," Perisic believes.

Lawyer Branislav Tapuskovic believes that it will be avoided in all possible ways that NATO is connected with the crimes that happened before the war in Kosovo, but also with the crimes after the war, when a thousand people disappeared and, as he adds, no one is prosecuted for it.

"There won't be much benefit from the trial, primarily because the whole thing has intensified due to the "Yellow House" case and the accusations of human organ trafficking. That is not and will not be in the indictment, no one has been charged with it. There is nothing in the indictment about the expulsion of 250,000 Serbs after the NATO occupation followed. The question is what will remain of the accusations on which the indictment is based, given that the trial is being held in five phases, and the big question is also what kind of pressure the witnesses are under and whether there will be witnesses who will confirm those things contained in the indictment," Tapuskovic told Kosovo Online.

He adds that it is in the interest of many that the crimes are not connected to NATO and states that, while the trial of the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic was going on, there was no mention of the crimes of the leader of the KLA, but only the opinion that crimes were committed against the Albanians.

"If it had been at the time when Milosevic was being tried, the indictment against the KLA leader would have been even shakier, so he will avoid being connected at any time with those things that they enabled to happen, in all possible ways, above all with those crimes that happened before the war started," Tapuskovic said.

The professor of international law from Pristina, Afrim Hoti, believes that the trial in The Hague cannot and will not be viewed in the context of some political consequences for the West and NATO.

"There is an essential difference between the law of war and possible war crimes. The war between NATO and the KLA was just and legitimate, against the ethnic cleansing and genocide committed by the former Serbian dictator and later the criminal Milosevic. So the situation here is completely clear, regardless of who led this war," Hoti tells Kosovo Online.

He also points out that "alleged crimes during the war must be solved, regardless of who committed them."

"This also applies to the leaders of the former KLA. These reports are clearly regulated by the Geneva Convention. Therefore, the war and its development were and remain right. Issues of individual responsibility are issues that the judiciary deals with, regardless of ethnic, racial, or other basis," Hoti says.