Koci expects clarification from lawyers of former KLA leaders: Around 40 million euros paid from the budget

Lawyer Arianit Koci said that the lawyers representing former President Hashim Thaci and the others on trial before the Specialist Chambers must publicly explain what happened during the proceedings and how the former KLA leaders came to be convicted.

According to Koci, the defense has an obligation to the public to provide an explanation, stressing that there had been no indications that the trial would end in convictions.

“Political interpretations are a matter of our internal relations. We expect a professional, clear and specific explanation from the defense teams. They owe this to the citizens because they represented Kosovo's highest-ranking state officials, starting with the country's former president. Moreover, around 40 million euros have so far been spent from Kosovo's budget on the legal defense of all those indicted and suspected before the Hague court, with around 28.5 million allocated solely for these four individuals,” Koci wrote on Facebook.

First-instance verdicts were handed down before the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague against four KLA leaders, Hashim Thaci, Kadri Veseli, Jakup Krasniqi and Rexhep Selimi.

Thaci was sentenced to 25 years in prison, Veseli was sentenced to 18 years, Krasniqi was also found guilty and sentenced to 25 years, while Selimi was sentenced to 13 years. The Panel found all four criminally responsible for the war crimes of arbitrary arrest and detention of 385 people, cruel treatment of 49 people, torture of 303 people, and the murder of 96 people, according to the summary of the judgment.