NATO General Wesley Clark has reacted to the decision of the Hague Tribunal, which sentenced 4 former KLA leaders to a total of 81 years in prison.
In an interview with the Off the Record show on A2 CNN, he said he was shocked by the Hague decision and that he has not seen any evidence to justify this type of decision.
According to him, now will be a difficult road for the future.
“I am shocked and angry. I know Thaçi and his friends and all those who fought the war. I have testified in court, I have said what I saw and I knew what was happening in Kosovo and our cooperation with the KLA and I have not seen any evidence to justify this kind of decision. Unfortunately, the Court gave its decision and this will be a difficult path in the future,” the general said.
Asked if there was anything that matched between what the judges said and what the general saw with his own eyes, he replied that Hashim Thaçi did an excellent job of protecting the innocent Serbian population.
“As far as I know, these secret testimonies, which were not shown to me by the prosecution, would not make me change my opinion. I met with Hashim Thaçi three times during the conflict and in Rambouillet.
Of course I met him when I was in Kosovo, but the KLA and what was happening there was a rebellion against an authoritarian regime and not just an authoritarian regime, but also many individual crimes committed by individual Serbs against their Albanian neighbors.
And as I explained in court today, there was a lot of emotion with people who had known each other and Albanians feeling betrayed by their Serbian neighbors who had lived a life together, but of course there were strong feelings and I thought that Hashim Thaçi did an excellent job of protecting the innocent Serbian population, as well as those who were on the Ibar River pushing the Albanians down.
“So I had concerns about further, but I couldn’t say that Thaçi was someone who could be convicted of war crimes.”