In his three-day testimony at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague, the former US assistant Secretary of State James Rubin – the first defence witness for former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci – said the Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, did not have a proper army structure – testimony that firmly bolsters the defence case.

Rubin insisted that Thaci, as a political leader of the guerrilla force, could not make decisions without the confirmation of the KLA’s operational zone commanders.

The former US diplomat started his testimony on September 15, marking the start of the defence case in the war crimes and crimes against humanity trial of Thaci, former parliamentary speakers Kadri Veseli and Jakup Krasniqi, and former MP Rexhep Selimi. All three men were senior KLA figures during the war.

Thaci and his co-defendants claim they cannot be held accountable for alleged crimes by lower ranking KLA fighters because the KLA was a grassroots movement. Decisions were made by the commanders in the field, they insist.

Prosecutors disagree, insisting the KLA leadership had effective control over the fighters who allegedly committed crimes.

Known as the right-hand man of former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Rubin told the court on his third day of testimony on Wednesday that the KLA did not have a proper command structure liek an ordinary army.

“I saw that there were no battalions, brigades or units. I know they had uniforms, some had them, some didn’t. We didn’t consider [their leaders] commanders or general staff,” Rubin said.

He explained that “there were groups and clans but not ones that had a formal military structure. If such a structure had existed in terms of their military analysis, then this information would have been intelligence and I should have known about it.”

Rubin told the court that he sometimes read KLA communiqués, “but I’ve mostly considered them attempts to make the KLA more important than it actually was”.

On Tuesday, during questioning, Rubin told the court that “the fact that the defendant has been in prison for five years after voluntarily offering himself to the court at a time when he was about to make a peace agreement with the Serb leader troubled me, that politics will interfere in the rule of law”.

Thaci was indicted in October 2020 and resigned as Kosovo President in November 2020 to face the charges and was sent to The Hague with the rest of the accused. They have been in detention ever since.

Rubin said that “it troubles me that you would be in prison for five years… when he had volunteered himself and no bail was provided to someone who has shown himself willing to submit to the court in every way possible”.

He claimed that such a proceeding was “not the kind of rule of law that I had hoped the international system would create when Madeleine Albright created the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda”.

“I wanted to see individual accountability to avoid collective blame and it felt to me this was collective blame just because he [Thaci] was the leader of the KLA and having observed the leadership of the KLA in their mountain hideout, in a way that I believe no other person did outside of the KLA, having a unique view of the leadership structure of the KLA, a snapshot for three days observing how they behaved, how they operated, who was in charge, who was a commander, who was a subordinate, I felt this was really wrong and not justice,” Rubin added.

Rubin was present during the failed March 1999 Rambouillet talks between Kosovo and Serbia as well as during the discussions on the ground for the demilitarisation of Kosovo and the establishment of new institutions after the war.

On Monday, he testified that, at the time of Rambouillet, the US did not have much knowledge of the KLA, which he said was not a well-organised force. He told the court that Albright assigned him to get to know Thaci as the leader of the Kosovo delegation at the talks.

On Monday, he said he had the role of some kind of foreign minister with a “political role”, who could sign deals, but “did not have authority to decide on anything” because “he didn’t have the capability or the knowledge to make decisions”.

The US diplomat said that Thaci “was a reflection of the leadership of the [KLA] movement and not in charge of that movement”.

He told the court that the battlefield commanders were in charge and made the decisions. “They told [Thaci] what to do, he didn’t tell them what to do,” Rubin emphasised.

During the questioning by Krasniqi’s lawyer, Venkateswari Alagendra, Rubin told the court that the US State Department did not find any evidence supporting allegations of war crimes committed by the KLA by 2000, while he was part of the US government, “but even in the 25 years after”, claiming he constantly asks former colleagues in order to be updated.

Rubin’s testimony was preceded by rallies of hundreds of ethnic Albanians and KLA veterans from across Europe and the US who protested in the Hague on Sunday in support of Thaci and his three co-accused.

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers are part of Kosovo’s justice system but are based in The Hague with an international staff to ensure fair proceedings after witness intimidation problems in previous KLA-related cases. Many ethnic Albanians and KLA supporters insist that the proceedings have been unfair to the defendants.

Many prosecution witnesses have testified behind closed doors to protect their identities due to fears of reprisals, but this has led to allegations of a lack of transparency. The court has told BIRN that Thaci will call 11 witnesses, while former speaker Krasniqi will call two. The judging panel has set November 14 as an estimated closing date for the defence case. After closing statements, the panel has 90 days to consider its verdict, suggesting that it may be delivered in spring 2026.

The second witness for Thaci’s defence, Paul Williams, adviser to the Kosovo delegation in Rambouillet in 1999, started his testimony immediately after Rubin on Wednesday.