Crocodile tears by Hashim Thaci

For people with sensitive nerves and stomachs, of which there were certainly many among the victims' representatives in the courtroom in The Hague, listening to the opening statement of Thaci's lawyer, Mr. Kehoe, was no doubt quite a strain, especially as he explained to the jury what had been going on in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999 and how the leaders of the KLA Albanian rebels were actually a group of unorganized humanitarians or classical music lovers.

But hey, the man is an experienced professional, the fee is certainly lucrative.

Here I would refer only to the most striking parts of Kehoe's presentation and to the general impression of Thaci's appearance at the beginning of the trial. Not to offend the other, less vocal actors of the current Hague process, however, it is known who the main star is.

The basis of Thaci's defense, therefore, boils down to three or four thin theses.

The first is that Hashim Thaci was not the head of the KLA at all and could not control the people on the ground, so consequently, he probably cannot be held responsible for their criminal actions.

I believe that this is an unpleasant statement for Thaci himself, but the reasons why he is now renouncing the main role in the armed rebellion against the state of Serbia are understandable. Life imprisonment must somehow be avoided. However, there is a lot of evidence for his role in the activities and organization of the KLA. Today, Albanian children in Kosovo learn this from a young age. And the world public learned this fact back in Rambouillet, at the beginning of 1999, where the young Thaci was the leading Albanian negotiator right in front of the KLA. His appearances, pictures, and statements at that time made him a star, as the undisputed leader of the "fighters for the freedom of Kosovo".

And that fame is now binding his feet, and from the way he looked in the courtroom, he is fully aware of it.

Gregory Kehoe says that the rebel Albanians did not have an organized military formation even though they tried, but what do we do with the fact that today there are 60,000 war veterans in Kosovo?! So he adds that Thaci had no reason to carry out crimes because he relied on the support of the US. Unfortunately, that was just one more reason.

The American lawyer played in the courtroom, among other things, a recording from July 1999 in which his client says that the Serbs should stay living in Kosovo and that no one will threaten them. That fits perfectly with Thaci's statement that he was extremely sorry for every victim who fell in Kosovo. But words are one thing, actions are something completely different. And Charles Manson said he was Christ. Well, that didn't stop his followers from committing those massacres in the US.

The lawyer also argued his theses about Thaci's innocence with a BBC documentary, Christopher Hill's book, and Madeleine Albright and Joe Biden's statements from the senatorial period.

However, the facts are inexorable. It was his man on the dock, nicknamed the Snake, who was in uniform and in command while monstrous things were happening to kidnapped and held people in illegal KLA prisons in Kosovo. To Serbs, Albanians, Roma people, to anyone who did not like Thaci's comrades-in-arms.

Broken teeth and bones of hundreds of innocents, mutilated out of pure hatred, ears cut off, eyes gouged out, wails in pools of blood, in mud and feces, hours and days of beatings, torture, waiting for new tortures, and again even stronger and more painful. Without water or food, in barns and dingy basements, with the only wish in their heads that someone would come and finish them off, with a bullet or whatever. If only the hell would stop. And there are many more details in the indictment.

What will we do with these people and their families?

"The international community has informed me that the Special Court is essential in order to refute the dark allegations of organ trafficking attributed to Kosovo. The world now knows that there was no organ trafficking, the 'Yellow House' never existed, and neither the KLA nor we are guilty of what is attributed to us," Thaci said in his short address, trying to sound convincing.

But the spark in the eye disappeared. It seems that Thaci was tricked by that company from the international community, which he mentions. He trusted them, and the hope of that support is still a straw he is holding on to. Still, many years have passed. Some friendships have faded. It will not be the first such case.

They told him to form a court to reject the bloody mortgage. But... Some things cannot be erased or crossed out. They come to the surface no matter how much you push and push them. And Thaci admits that individuals among the Albanians committed crimes, but he does not know who. Repentant, he asked the court to believe in his innocence. It was almost touching.

Thaci probably agreed to the establishment of the Special Court in 2015 only because he believed that the evidence for the "Yellow House" had been destroyed and that through the court's failure in that matter, he would receive confirmation of his moral "purity" in order to remove the only obstacle to a peaceful and comfortable life in a house on the outskirts of Pristina. Or maybe even up to the Nobel Peace Prize, there were those announcements. He did not expect that the indictment would go as far as it did and that someone in the prosecution would actually do their job.

He must have been additionally amazed by the fact that there are still living witnesses, ready to speak about what the indictment states that he and his friends Veseli, Selimi, and Krasniqi did. There were none for Haradinaj and Limaj.

The former president of Kosovo in the Hague cell now has enough time to think about how he has come such a long way in 25 years, from a Swiss student, the leader of illegal rebels, to the Western favorite, Biden's George Washington, Albanian hero, and master, and then back, in the dark, and to the indictment for KLA crimes.

Despite the heavy accusations facing Thaci, the example of Ramush Haradinaj and his acquittal in court give the right to sympathizers and comrades from the KLA to believe that a similar scenario is possible even now. We are still far from the epilogue of this trial, it will be a painful process without any guarantees of justice. But, whatever the decision in the end, for Thaci and his KLA, the book of fame is sealed. That story is over.

Written by: Milos Garic, editor of the Kosovo Online portal