Shukri Buja, who was a commander with the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA in the guerrilla force’s Nerodime Operational Zone, told the war crimes and crimes against humanity trial of former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci and three others that the defendants did not hold positions that enabled them to give operational orders.

Buja, who is also named in the indictment as a member of a ‘joint criminal enterprise’, told the court on Thursday that the public learned that defendant Jakup Krasniqi was a member of the KLA General Staff in June 1998, during his first public appearance as the KLA’s spokesperson. Buja claimed to have also met Krasniqi for the first time around then.

“He was the KLA spokesperson and [therefore him having] operational duties does not make sense,” Buja told the court.

Buja explained that defendant Kadri Veseli was the head of intelligence and counterintelligence for the KLA but “he did not give me any orders”. The witness also claimed that Veseli did not give orders to any other person in the Nerodime Operational Zone.

Defendants Thaci, Krasniqi, Rexhep Selimi and Veseli are accused of having individual and command responsibility for crimes committed against prisoners held at KLA detention facilities in Kosovo and Albania, including 102 murders.

The crimes were allegedly committed between at least March 1998 and September 1999, during and just after the war in Kosovo. The defendants have pleaded not guilty.

The defence is seeking to prove that the KLA did not have a rigid command structure like a normal army, and so the defendants were not responsible if any crimes were committed by lower-ranking guerrillas.

Buja told the court that he had only learned about most of the positions within the KLA’s General Staff during peace negotiations at Rambouillet in France in February 1999, where he said conference Thaci held “the main political responsibility at that time”.

Buja had to be ordered by the judges to testify or risk a fine, as he had refused to answer prosecution questions, fearing he would be incriminated.

The indictment of Thaci and his co-defendants mentions the holding of detainees in March 1999 in the KLA’s Nerodime Operational Zone, and specifies that Buja was the KLA’s commander there.

The indictment also claims that “multiple KLA members, including Fatmir Limaj and Shukri Buja, participated in the arrest and detention of persons held at Llapushnik/Lapusnik”. Limaj was acquitted of war crimes in a separate trial.

Buja also testified in Limaj’s trial. Thaci’s lawyer told the court that a panel of judges in Limaj’s trial considered the witness to be biased because of his loyalty towards the KLA. But the the trial panel at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers argued that it will make its own decision about his testimony.

After his four-day testimony in the Thaci trial ended on Thursday, Buja announced on Facebook that investigations into him by the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office in The Hague, which started in 2019, have ended. BIRN contacted the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office for confirmation but did not receive a response by the time of publication.